Best MBT in Service

[captiva303]

Regarding fuel. Abrams can travel further than other tanks as they have a larger fuel tank. So despite its inefficiencies it is actually a bonus to an army with sufficient logistics. It can also burn anything in its turbine engine so it's not picky.. Atleast that is the ideas anyway.

One point I am interested in is does the Abrams have its own fuel pump? So that it can fill itself. Rather than relying on external pumps. This would allow Abrams to fill themselves from virtually any source .

 

[KevinTheCynic]

To answer some of the questions

If they're in decent condition to begin with, a group of armoured vehicles could happily travel a few hundred klicks without serious problems in the Australian outback. Our Leopard AS1 tanks used to do exactly that on exercises in the north of the country.

The distance issue in Australia isn't about how far a tank could travel without problems, the issue is logistics, specifically about the supply of fuel.
That is to say, how many refueling points do you need and how far apart can they be. In Europe where there is literally a village every 5-10 kilometres, finding other sources of diesel isn't as difficult as it is here because our population density is so damned low (according to a World Bank report, the 2010 Australian pop. density was 2.90/sq.km)

The turbine does generate more heat compared to a traditional internal combustion engine but it can make use of the same techniques for cooling, e.g. fan forced air cooling is typical in tanks.

Yes, wider tracks will help with soft soil. Generally though, the ground in Australia is not loose enough or wet enough to make this an issue.

P.S. As far as I know, the Abrams does not have a fuel pump to allow it to refill itself. It still relies on an external pump to transfer fuel.

 

[BritinBritain]

I was never a tanker, but I was in transport/logistics. We carried our own diesel on 4 tonner POD's, wherever the Squadron ended up we always had our own fuel. Although I dread to think how many POD's you'd need to keep a Squadron of tanks supplied.

 

[Tankboy]

PODs!, when I first started, we had can wagons, mostly Stalwart's which were great wagons, when they worked.
Typically, on a night replen, we would have 20-30 jerrycans, per tank.
Plus a crate of Herfy,and a bottle of something warming.

 

[BritinBritain]

PODs!, when I first started, we had can wagons, mostly Stalwart's which were great wagons, when they worked.
Typically, on a night replen, we would have 20-30 jerrycans, per tank.
Plus a crate of Herfy,and a bottle of something warming.

The Stalwarts were a good vehicle until they broke their drive box's, the Stalwart chassis was also used for the RAF's Mk6 fire tender.

We also had jerry can trucks until the MOD decided to spend some money and issue us with POD trucks. I remember filling up a Leyland Martian with Jerry cans, all 450 litres of the stuff!

 

[Tankboy]

The problem we had was, that CR was more juicy than CH, but we only had 2 Pod wagons per Sqn.
Took all day to replen us.

 

[BritinBritain]

Only 8,000 litres? We had more than that if I remember correctly, I think we had one POD per troop. One of our biggest problems was a mixture of petrol and diesel vehicles, the POD's carried diesel while petrol was issued from Jerry cans.

 

[Pure Canadian]

My vote is for the leopard 2