Comments by "Tim Murphy" (@timmurphy5541) on "Matsimus" channel.

  1. I think the most interesting aspect is the use of Boxer. These are about 4-5 million euros each, I think. If this is not too much then we might see an explosion of incredible boxer modules that we wouldn't have imagined being possible until we saw this one.
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  2. Much more efficient, so lower logistics cost, huge torque, lower maintenance, low IR signature, ability to power other things like e.g. electric armour. It doesn't have to be all-electric - could be hybrid.
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  3. It could be hybrid and just much more efficient.
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  4.  @FrostbiteDigital  We've been fed a diet of fear in the past about how amazing all the Russian equipment is and recent events showed up that for all the published specs, what's actually put out there doesn't match up. The current mood is opposite but not very wrong. How many Armata tanks has anyone seen? How effective were those scary "Terminators" ? How many of these Kurganets things has anyone seen in Ukraine? Making a few high end pre-production models is a lot different from mass producing something sophisticated.
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  5. A person I knew at school apparently became a major and I've always worried about the quality of the Army since I heard that. Hopefully nobody who knows me and him will read this. He was a person who liked being part of an institution and since our school (in Africa) was quite different from the easygoing UK ones I think he liked the idea of being in another place where someone would tell him what to do and what to think. He was inclined to boss people around without the authority to do so and wasn't all that bright about it either. It struck me that if he is typical then the Army isn't a place where one can get away from boneheads and exercise one's brain to the best of one's ability.
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  6.  @user-pq4by2rq9y  You're right and I don't think that full-electric is practical today so hybrid will happen first.
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  7. The problem with this analysis is that it relies on what has been published and as the Ukraine conflict has shown, the details in real life don't always match up to the specs. It can use guided rockets for example, but how many of those are there? Why, with 800 of these, has Russia not already won? If it's so good at counter battery fire why is there any Ukranian artillery left? Is it just because they've dispersed? I do notice it needs to be reloaded by another vehicle with a crane where the Himars and M270 (I think) can reload themselves from a dropped off pack so I can see logistics issues there. I imagine that accuracy is a huge boost to logistics too.
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  8.  @user-pq4by2rq9y  That's just not what the evidence shows. Hybrids bring back the reliability problems. Batteries can be cooled and heated to make them work well just like the people inside get cooled or heated to make them work well.
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  9. I applaud the honesty. So many people have this attitude and won't admit it.
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  10. Electric is not hot - no IR signature and hybrid vehicles can use fuel but much more efficiently.
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  11.  @mattbrody3565  Hub motors would allow layout improvements inside and perhaps offset some weight too - plus all the potential traction improvements.
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  12.  @user-pq4by2rq9y  Electric cars have offered plenty of data about reliability. There are far fewer moving parts and that makes them much more reliable. Battery packs can be designed for heavy use (i.e. high power output) and are working successfully for everything from those huge house-sized dump trucks in open cast mines to buses and trucks.
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  13. An example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_xrpYC_FFQ&t=2m03s
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  14. Short summary of what I've read: It's small because it needs to fit into ships hangars and it's small enough that some ships can host 2 and always have 1 in the air. Small size is not what the army wants obviously and the Army is the loser here - the Navy couldn't buy enough to justify the purchase on its' own so the Army was forced into accepting something it didn't really want. It apparently has only 1 pilot which some people complain about - too small to have much redundancy. One reason why some ships seem under armed but aren't is that they have a helicopter which is a potent weapon. The Merlin is perhaps a more fearsome sub hunter with extremely long range but ships can usually only host one. The component count has drastically reduced through the use of large composite structures that are made in 1 piece. I read that there have been troubles with it and yet what aircraft has no troubles at the beginning? What were they? Have they been solved? I couldn't find any information. Is it now in a period of stability ?? No idea.
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  15.  @goddepersonno3782  Rubber tracks are quiet and they're becoming very popular because they're easy to repair and don't damage roads. The bit about guns is humorous but as you can imagine, reconnaissance vehicles don't want to get into fights at all and tanks etc want to be thermally and acoustically quiet in some situations so they can surprise their opponent.
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  16.  @DavidFMayerPhD  I'm not inventing it. You can watch ICE cars filmed against electric ones with an IR camera on one of the recent Fully Charged videos about their Fully charged live event. It's plain to see.
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  17. I think the comments about obsolescence are the key - they are not really aiming to upgrade the tank but are just making sure that for each bit of equipment in it they can get spare parts and have a supplier to go to for problems. e.g. The active kill is "optional" as you heard and I wonder how many of the other "new feature" changes also optional and will be rejected to save money.
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  18. the Harrier was a French concept though.
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  19. It's not being bought because it's a solution looking for a problem. And an expensive one too. The Ukranians have come up with drones they really need which have mostly been aerial - you see unmanned ground vehicles from them too but hear very little about them in the long run. They might indeed love to have a try with this as long as they're not paying for it - but if you gave them the money they might spend it on flying drones instead.
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  20. Lockheed bought a UK company which is doing the work.
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  21.  @mirandela777  HIMARS is 6, M270 is 12. HIMARS is faster to deploy but M270 has tracks so it can deal with bad ground. The SMERCH also has 12 larger rockets but for example I think they're often unguided whereas Himars and M270 are now all guided. As for warheads HIMARS has quite a few (submunition, tungsten pellet, high explosive, tank killer, extended range etc) - just not thermobaric. The HIMARS can fire 1 much larger ATACMS rocket as well which is something that the Smerch tube design cannot handle. There's a new thing called GMARS which will have a truck chassis like HIMARS but 12 rockets instead of 6. There's another Israeli rocket system called PULS which is being adopted in Europe too.
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  22.  @mirandela777  I'm no expert. Iskanders get used and have an effect obviously. But one vehicle that can fire multiple types of rockets that are accurate: that's a logistical benefit. I don't know how it stacks up but Ukraine is still standing so obviously the Russian equipment - which is in huge numbers - isn't swinging the balance in their favour.
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  23.  @mirandela777  I find that the more laugh symbols a person the more hopeless their argument. Enjoy your tanking economy Ivan.
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  24. Андрей Назариков  The evidence maybe is the relative size of the forces.
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  25. You don't mention hybrid vehicles which is by far the most likely possibility and avoids the concern about having to include a huge weight of batteries. I don't know how much time combat vehicles spend running their engines at full power but if it's not 100% of the time then you could get away with a smaller engine and get the instant power from your battery. This is not bullshit - it's one of the benefits people in aviation have been thinking about - take off and climb on battery+jet power and cruise on a just jet lets you have a much smaller engine. Car batteries now need less cobalt than phone batteries do apparently - they've been redesigned and their temperature is better managed so they need it less. Your estimate of 20-30 years for batteries to improve is really not taking into account the immense efforts being put into car batteries. There are many promising alternatives with lots of teams working on them - solid-state batteries, Lithium sulfur, etc etc. Batteries are going to get used in aerospace because the economic appeal is so strong and this will create the incentive to deal with the weight issue.
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  26.  @spartan-ml7nk  ... but want others to buy these things and rely on France....it's sort of like calling customers stupid.
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  27.  @Max_Da_G  ... it's just not evident. T-xx tanks have a fast autoloader....win? No. Turret toss. Russia has active protection systems? Well maybe but we see lots of tanks getting taken out by Stugna or other missiles and we hear quite a lot of stories about reactive armour not even being installed in the panels. Russia has electronic warfare for vehicles - but it seems it often doesn't work properly and occasionally is a scam - empty boxes. Russia's aircraft are incredible - but they seem to be hiding. Russia's air defence system is unbeatable - but drones make their way through to oil refineries all the time. .... and so on. We have a right to be quite sceptical.
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  28.  @Jamal_dont_mess  Oh, I don't think that the Leopards were overstated. The M1 is obviously too difficult but it's there in such small numbers anyhow that it's not important.
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  29. ​ @Based_Lord  I think the west has probably had lots of tanks to look at so the overt capabilities weren't a surprise to us but it was a surprise that Russian trucks had problems with their tyres and that tanks arrived with nothing in their ERA boxes....and that they use EW systems which often don't work at all. They had many thousands of tanks so it's the RESULT that is surprising - that this advantage has been largely ineffective. Their S400 air defense has turned out to be vastly less impressive than we thought....for whatever reason. The western tanks have shown their weak points too IMO mostly that there aren't enough and that they're too hard to maintain unless you have lots of highly trained mechanics which is something one expects to run out of eventually. It does seem that quality matters, however since they can be used effectively at night.
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  30. Time spent is a trade off. I screwed up high school so I wasted 2 years before I got into university. From then there was no let up until I'm here and old. I'm still behind my schoolmates. I should have done a masters but I was too eager to get into earning. That was a trade off too - for a little while I did better than the people who did go into a masters but they waltzed past me in my late 30s with better jobs. So you can spend time not working but what's the best thing to do with that time? The Armed forces? I think you have to really want it and accept that there is a tradeoff. I don't mean there is no benefit but however you look at it, you're going to spend a lot of time and effort on something of which not all is learning and not all of that time improves your prospects.
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  31. I believe that Lockheed initially won the contract by proposing that they could upgrade the turrets as against BAE's offer to make new ones......then it turned out that they had to replace them anyhow. I read that the next problem was that the cannon used to need a new barrel after 700 rounds (that might have changed as that news is a bit old). The last problem that I read of is that they can't cheaply convert all the hulls since some are not in as good condition. So as usual....the cheap offer wins by not being realistic and then one pays more anyhow.
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  32.  @charlesreddington6834  I don't think that those of us outside the fighter pilot community really understand modern combat enough to know what constitutes an advantage apart from the most obvious things like being able to shoot first.
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  33. They are already being used in shipbuilding in Korea and other industrial situations where they save people from injury when they are repeatedly lifting heavy things even if those things are not too heavy for a normal person to lift once or twice. I would expect it to be used in the army/airforce in similar situations where they are stacking/loading/whatever. Also what do people do with packhorses when a fight starts or whatever else they use to carry their ammunition etc when they're in the mountains?
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  34. If the west managed to keep Russia discouraged for the entire cold war without spending as much of its wealth then you can see why it won.
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  35. You're an adventurer. It's boring to stay at home.
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  36.  @utzius8003  read up what a gallon of diesel cost to transport to Afghanistan. Quite horrifying. My googling says the US army was paying USD 400 per gallon.
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  37.  @utzius8003  You just charge them by plugging the vehicle in to some power source. If it's a hybrid you don't even have to do that. No need to import batteries continuously.
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  38.  @utzius8003  To charge the tank you have many options from portable solar, to the grid if there is one to ammonia-powered fuel cells to wind and in the worst case, diesel generators if nothing else can be found. If your tank is hybrid then you still need fuel but less because of the increased efficiency. Options are good.
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  39.  @utzius8003  I'm sure the enemy might also try to blow up all its petrol dumps - might not succeed though. How is it that solar panels exist in desert countries, BTW? I have noticed turbines that are all sorts of sizes. Fuel cells are just another possibility, in this case you can run them on a byproduct of other industrial processes for example without even needing oil. I think that since armies already have to take power generation with them, they will work out something that uses several factors and ends up being quite rugged - something that will be able to provide limited power even when diesel isn't available and that will be more reliable.
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