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Quick question


cobrabase

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There is a back deck clearance switch which causes the gun to elevate to avoid hitting the rear. When this happens the gun cannot fire, however you can fire if the gun is elevated above this. So... yes and no. ;)

It's never the safest to fire sabot over the rear because of the "petals?"

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I think it's exaggarated, especially considering very solid steel mesh protecting air intake and also placement of air intake, and in the end also the fact how massive are air filters for the gas turbine.

So what Volcano said is the only limitation.

There is actually a lot of urban myths about M1, it's gas turbine and so on.

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You got that right about the myths! These two pinheads got on my case when I told them that you can't engage ground targets over the engine deck. Oh... they know EVERYTHING! I'm the biggest moron on the planet!!! Whatever.... I KNEW you can't shoot at anything directly behind you in the Abrams because SB Pro models it so well. I had lost all mobility from an RPG strike in a scenario. I had a T-72 rolling behind me showing me his flank. I had a perfect shot on him and I couldn't make it because of the engine deck switch. I'll remember that moment always. LOL. Nothing I could do.

A friend of mine in Colorado served as an Abrams driver and gunner. He told me that when those sabots fly only Sir Isaac Newton can tell you where they will end up.

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I think it's general problem of any western type, mainly beauce of raised engine deck. It could be fixed by raising the whole hull, however this means also more weight for hull, so it's unfortunate trade off.

Unofortunetaly tank designing is not easy, lots of trade off's needs to be made. ;)

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You got that right about the myths! These two pinheads got on my case when I told them that you can't engage ground targets over the engine deck. Oh... they know EVERYTHING! I'm the biggest moron on the planet!!! Whatever.... I KNEW you can't shoot at anything directly behind you in the Abrams because SB Pro models it so well. I had lost all mobility from an RPG strike in a scenario. I had a T-72 rolling behind me showing me his flank. I had a perfect shot on him and I couldn't make it because of the engine deck switch. I'll remember that moment always. LOL. Nothing I could do.

A friend of mine in Colorado served as an Abrams driver and gunner. He told me that when those sabots fly only Sir Isaac Newton can tell you where they will end up.

Balancing speed, mobility, firepower and protection... not an easy task!

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Aye, tough interesting fact is that soviets would probably choose something similiar to the engine deck design for some of their future tank projects in 70's and 80's.

Object 490/490A "Buntar" had engine deck raised in similiar way to M1 or other western tanks.

UKCDjSg.jpg

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Buntar%2B_ukrainian%2Bmain%2Bbattle%2Btank_object%2B490A%2B_008.jpg

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There were several variants for Object 490/490A "Buntar", similiar in case of Object 477/477A "Boxer/Molot" and Object 477A1/A2 "Nota", some used T-64 components, some used T-80 components.

These projects were what I think you guys in US called FST-2 or FST-3.

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It's never the safest to fire sabot over the rear because of the "petals?"

AFAICR, the reason you cannot fire if you trip the back deck clearance switch is because the gun is no longer aligned with the GPS. Probably not a great idea to fire a maingun round such a situation, so it is prevented. ;)

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Actually question about air induct is interesting, I mean, it does not mean something won't be sucked there, but the actuall question is, when it can eventually happen.

And air intake is in such case pretty far from the main gun muzzle.

The main problem is water. Soldiers tend to spray the air induct system with a lot of water which then will cause a blown engine. Actually seen 3 engines blown at the wash rack just in one company.

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Did they get wet?

You'd think a tank was a sealed environment, wouldn't you?

When I talked last year with our Leopard 2A4 crews about deep water fording they said such excercises are rare due to several reasons, among them were complains about driver hatch not being watertight, and in general water leaks through his hatch.

No problems with Leopard 2A5 drivers hatch tough, or at least as far as I know.

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