What RTS is this from?
My brain just doesn’t want to accept the idea of a stealth tank. It kind of feels like building a stealth monster truck, or creating sugar free Pez. It’s like being loud is part of what it’s supposed to do.
Not to fet credible, but from a treeline 2km away a properly disguised tank can be pretty stealthy. Same concept of stealth aircraft, yeah if its close you’re gonna see it, but if passive and active sensors can pick it up till visual range, well mighty fine way to sneak a platoon of tanks into an otherwise ‘observed’ area while looking like little more than a couple of civilian vehicles or migrating animals to a radar, or dull spot to thermals.
powered by hydrogen fuel cells
I don’t think the logistics for hydrogen fuel cells will help in actual combat situations, though it’s expected to enter operation in 2040 anyway.
autonomous driving and slave drones
Hopefully one that actually works. As for the drones, I guess for reconnaissance?
You can load a truck with fuel cells to extend range beyond what the current infrastructure can handle.
It’s more complicated with batteries that need to be charged. Sure, there’s a grid in many places, but if combat capability depends on the grid, it’ll get targetted. And even before that, capacity is a concern and if the grid can handle a tank battalion wanting to plug in every tank so they can be ready for whatever comes next ASAP.
Fuel cells mean they can set up behind the front lines and use power more predictably and refuel tanks quicker than gas.
I never really understood what fuel cells have to do with hydrogen, and why it’s a more appealing form factor than removing a vehicle’s gas tank and instead just putting in a manifold with room for a number of some standard of gas can with valves fitted. It’s not an inherently “hydrogen” thing.
Besides, it’s fully possible to set up a bunch of gas cans from a truck in the same way you could set up a bunch of hydrogen “fuel cells”.
By my understanding fuel cells are less about form factor, and more about directly converting the fuel into electricity across a membrane, like how batteries operate, so like a battery that takes in Hydrogen on one terminal and Oxygen on the other, being more efficient than burning it in an engine and trying to recapture some of that as electricity after thermal and friction losses have eaten into it.
So it is more a replacement for the engine than it is for the fuel tank. Wikipedia
The next-generation tank will have stronger preemptive strike capabilities using an artificial intelligence-based fire control system
Well that’s disturbing. I wonder what level of buzz word AI this is? Safe to assume computer vision is involved, target/threat identification… Does “preemptive strike” imply the fire control system is firing by itself? I know it’s not the case but it’s hilarious to imagine it’s ChatGPT doing it.
My heart smiles at the thought of the first crew to actually command this thing in a war zone pulling security on some unknown pile of rubble and being awoken at 0347 by their tank unexpectedly dumping its entire payload on an “enemy” that it hallucinated.
Granted, dumb privates do this too, but it’s funnier to think about the tank doing it all by itself.
This could even be exploited by putting decoys in the landscape the AI recognizes as enemies.
Very easily
I am waiting for the non-destructible forever Toyota tank. Just make sure insurgents dont get their hands on one.
That a few thousand dollar drone will obliterate.
More like few hundred. Slap an old rpg on an fpv and there you go.
Hyundai?
Yes, Hyundai.
The big players in military tech aren’t just the likes of Raytheon and such, it’s also companies like Hyundai, Samsung, Texas Instruments (a little obvious for those who know, but many people are surprised about that calculator company being at the heart of so much military technology). Power plants and transmissions for tanks and such are made by General Electric, Allison, Cummings, etc. General Motors has a military division for small tactical vehicles (think Humvee)
Hell, IBM supplied computers to the Nazi regime that were used to tabulate prisoners at the concentration camps and those machines were used to produce the serial numbers tattooed on them. Most semiconductor research breakthroughs came as a result of military funding.
Famously transporting large volumes of hydrogen has never gone wrong and hydrogen charging stations have proven very reliable and also hydrogen as an alternative to electric is definitely not a ploy by big oil to keep drilling for fossil fuels!
Good job hyundai 👍 Very credible 👍🏿
No no, it’s credible because it decreases the ground weight, and if you fill it up enough, it can just float over AT mines 🤓
Username checks out?
Heh yeah, though it’s also an Iain M. Banks reference
I kind of lost track of his books in the early 2000s, but they’re still among my favorites. Gone too soon :/
Absolutely. I was heartbroken when he passed :(
Science man smart!
From Hyundai to Hindenburg very fast 👏 👏 👏
Hyundenbyurg 👌
Hmmm 🤔
Yes that is the sound that the compressor makes when it puts the hydrogen in
My dude, the military transports more volatile materials than hydrogen every day. Just because something doesn’t make sense for civilian use doesn’t mean it’s never going to be viable for military use.
If you’re worried about the dangers of transporting something like hydrogen, you’re going to lose it when you find out what bombs are made out of.
Electric motors are just more efficient in just about every way at scale, the current diesel motors being used in tanks aren’t really able to be improved upon. They’re at their technological peak, so the only way to move forward with mbt is by figuring out how to make electric motors work.
An unarmed bomb can be dropped from cruising altitude onto a hard surface and not detonate. The US military has had nukes fall out of planes without breaching the radioactive core.
Also, the energy density of hydrogen is pretty poor, diesel electric hybrid on the other hand is a proven technology.
An unarmed bomb can be dropped from cruising altitude onto a hard surface and not detonate. The US military has had nukes fall out of planes without breaching the radioactive core.
And yet you don’t think they could produce the same safety features for less volatile materials?
diesel electric hybrid on the other hand is a proven technology.
Yeah, you just have to add a diesel engine, electric engine, and a giant battery…The whole point of moving to electric is to increase efficiency and decreasing the weight of primary motive components.
Hydrogen isn’t less volatile though, it’s actually much easier to ignite than any modern explosive.
H2 tanks are safer than diesel. It would make a superior tank to diesel in most ways. Quiet, electronics power, portable solar charging in forward position, H2 production in solar rear stations. In war, having all of your large oil refineries and port handling blown up the first day is common, and decentralized and portable H2 production is an important asset.
ROK while leading on H2, is way behind on both solar transition projects/roadpath and have abandoned solar technology themselves. Government does serve its industrial champions but also serves US master. US wants to subjugate colonies to its NG. Industrial champion needs clean energy independence.
Do you even realize how much energy is needed to produce significant amounts of hydrogen and then compressing it to a useful pressure? FOB solar isn’t going to cut it. Decentralized H2 production isn’t a viable thing without fossil fuels or a working power grid.
For sure, field charging of tanks should be through DC. But H2 is the solution for energy abundance that is 100% renewables based. To have enough energy every day from renewables needs surpluses on most days, and H2 production is the best use of those surpluses because it is transportable/exportable energy that happens to be cheaper than electric transmission.
Military vehicles are purpose built. They didn’t use hydrogen because it was green, they used it to fulfill their requirements for a silent stealth battle tank. But I’m sure your technical knowledge far outdoes that of the people involved in designing this tank 👍 Very credible 👍🏿
Fuel cell technology will also dramatically reduce the noise the tank generates when on the move.
Literally from the article you failed to open.
I thought this was a shidposting community
I do actually agree with everything you and other people in this thread have said, I just don’t care :3
And yes my technical knowledge definitely outweighs the knowledge of hundreds of Hyundai engineers, thank you for noticing <3
I am Jia Tan and I approve this message :3
In the case of military vehicles, hydrogen is about the greenest option that we’re gonna get. No one is going to make a battery powered AFV, because where the fuck would you charge it?
Who if not the Germans built an electric tank in 2020 https://efahrer.chip.de/news/geraeuschlose-einsaetze-weltweit-erster-elektro-panzer-kommt-aus-deutschland_103179
Sounds crazy at first but comes with some good advantages: it can cross rivers as it doesn’t need air for combustion, it’s silent, and you can load it anywhere at the battle field if you have solar panels, time and sun. Still you can rely on military logistics to carry a swap battery. But isn’t the military supply chain the first target to disrupt? My two cents, this is the next thing at battle fields.
Oh, and if all your equipment runs on electricity, you can load and reload power at your needs. Tank needs power but car not? Combat robot out if power and car is full? Transfer the power
Honestly if MILITARY applications are what kicks renewable energy and mass storage into high gear, I won’t be surprised, but I will be disappointed.
But hey, improvement is still improvement and if a military organization sees renewable as the future, they’re gonna try to make sure they get there first. As long as whoever gets there shares the progress with the rest of the world, I’m okay with it.
But who am I kidding, it’s gonna be China or the US and the rest of the world won’t see shit for decades due to suppression of research and technology that would allow for similar specs to be achieved privately…
… How credible is my aluminum foil hat guy?
I must admit though, it’d be cool to see an armored combat battery sliding across a field to quick charge a tank that died mid-battle. 10 seconds of charging to get it up and running, and the battery moves to the next low power thing. I’m imagining a semi-autonomous hot-swap of a battery compartment and eventually recharging like modern airplane mid-air refueling. Insert Rod A into Slot A and wait a little bit. The faster they want it to charge, the more they’ll dump into R&D.
Just wait some years - they have solid state batteries close to industry ready. That means huge increase in capacity and no issues with temperature.
Next stage will be structural batteries where you take the structure as battery. For a tank that means all the armour will be charged and work as battery. Just a matter of years.
Loading time is solved already. It’s a matter of battery temperature while infusing power and solved by battery management software.
Any idea why the Boston Dynamics robots aren’t on a battle field? I mean the do incredible stunts. It‘s the battery. Lasts for around 2-3 hours. Today. Military is working on that, I‘m pretty sure.
Carrying volatile chemical energy on the outside of your tank seems somewhat unwise.
There are other types of batteries that don’t involve volatiles, like water batteries or metal-air batteries.
Yes, but structural batteries won’t make proper armor. The material demands are simply nowhere near compatible.
Range of tanks is not super important other than blitzkrieg strategy where refueling infrastructure catches up. Even under blietzkrieg, tanks eventually get into a siege position and solar can be enough to sustain their position indefinitely. H2 is the best quick refueling method for electric heavy vehicles. A dispenser can be hidden 1 mile or so behind the front lines. Production facilities can be portable and moved forward
Any reasonably sized pv installation near a battlefield will definitely not look suspicious on reconnaissance images.
You think less suspicious than these huge petrol storages in a city?
PV can be dismantled, if needed. I bet it’s even cheaper to replace when destroyed compared to petrol storage. Anyway, future will tell
Tanks are going the way of the battle ship though. Drones are doing a lot of the stuff they can do, and a lot of things they can’t.
Drones also seem to be good anti-tank and anti-ship weapons.
I’m not super familiar with the matter, but what do you mean by “going the way of the battle ship”? Do you mean they’re becoming more obsolete because of their size/utility compared to drones?
That, and expense. Tanks cost millions, while a $5k drone with an RPG strapped to it can take it out and exploit the weak spots.
Ultimately these small drones are still pretty vulnerable. I’d imagine the next/current generation of automatically targeting point defense weapons will be the solution.
I can imagine a unmanned autonomous tank though.
And if your tank is electric, it can be modified later with a small nuclear or fusion reactor.
Still you can rely on military logistics to carry a swap battery. But isn’t the military supply chain the first target to disrupt?
That’s true as well for hydrogen, though. And I guess there’s a higher chance of getting access to “power” somewhere in the field than finding a hydrogen tank. Also, energy density of lithium batteries is higher than for hydrogen storage.
energy density of lithium batteries is higher than for hydrogen storage.
opposite is true by a large margin. You’d still want a hybrid power train, and a charging from solar or BEV option never hurts, but H2’s advantage is quick refueling with battery charging on the go.
Isn’t hydrogen even more flammable and explosive than petroleum. Just seems like a dumb idea to put that in a military vehicle.
Yes, obviously, putting explosives and projectile propellants in an armored vehicle is dangerous and should be avoided
/s
OSHA is not a credible military threat
Right, but you are going to want to choose a fuel that has the least chance of flaming up if you’re making a military vehicle.
Hydrogen has (compared to petroleum) a Wider Flammability Range, Lower Ignition Energy (0.02 millijoules) which is really low and much smaller than petroleum, and a higher diffusion rate.
All of which make it more likely to go kaboom.
H2 is much safer than gasoline. Gasoline with explode as a bomb. A leak will make everything around it super flamable. An H2 tank that both is ruptured and on fire will shoot a flare into the air, instead of blowing up and killing everyone in the vehicle.
Silly one, and but do tanks run on diesel?
Every other heavy machine I can think of typically uses diesel for their engines: tractors, lorries, boats.
Also diesel is less flammable then petrol or hydrogen in the event of a spill of leak…
The Abrams uses jet fuel mainly. But most tanks are diesel.
The Abrams can run on just about anything liquid and flammable. It’s not gonna be happy about it, but it’ll go.
I think it was designed by pakleds…
The problem with diesel is that there has been a cap in their efficiency for quite some time. We’ve pretty much tweaked as much speed and efficiency out of what is possible with diesel tanks, which is why the Abrams has a turbine engine.
As tanks become heavier and heavier the only real solution is to migrate to electric motors, which are more efficient and vastly more reliable than diesel or turbine.
Just like with trains, the future of tanks are electric motors, and until we find a battery material more efficient and safe than lithium, hydrogen fuel cells are likely going to be the solution.
The correct solution is for tanks to drag a power cable and a water cooling loop behind them. This will make them invisible to thermals.
Diesel is a type of petroleum product.
Sir this is NCD. That comment is far too credible.
Shit I never saw I was in a meme sub lmao. To be fair the comments above mine seemed mostly serious.
Some of the best serious conversations get started by meme posts.
Would you say that we (wiggles eyebrows) subverted your expectations?
Right, but you are going to want to choose a fuel that has the least chance of flaming up if you’re making a military vehicle.
Why? If something has gotten through the armour, your fuel is the least of your worries. I mean you are sitting next to a stack of shells filled with high explosives.
Well if the fuel is compromised there’s a larger chance it’ll ignite and reach the shells if it’s hydrogen as opposed to petroleum.
My point is that if your tank’s armour is compromised by modern antitank weapons, it doesn’t really matter where it hits you. You’re going to be turned into chunky marinara, or your shells are going to cook off.
A pressurized fuel cell is already more protected than any fuel tank, and is smaller and lighter and more efficient than any ice engine. Which means you can add and divert even more armour to protect the cell and the occupants of the tank. Basically any danger associated with hydrogen is vastly overshadowed by the fact that tanks already carry high explosives. And that’s not so dangerous that we’re trying to replace them with non combustible weapon systems.
It’s not like Rotem is new at making tanks, the K2 is one of the best tanks currently in production. If the engineers thought fuel cells increased the likelihood of catastrophic failure, I highly doubt they would have tried it with the K3.
Personally, I think most people are just buying into the propaganda that shut down hydrogen power in the first place. To my knowledge there hasn’t ever been a death associated because of an explosion or fire involving a vehicle with h2.
It is less so. Also safer if tank ruptured.
You’d probably want a quick swap battery and charging far from the front lines.
Just put solar panels on top, easy.
If you ignore the fragility (creates a weak point to disable the tank) and the slow charging rate, dust and debris from firefights would be a pretty big issue.
Dust is indeed an issue for fuel cells. It is a solved issue with air filters though. FCEVs brag about making the air cleaner than without them. Industrial equipment in ultra dusty environments also work on FCs. It does require regular filter changes compared to BEV though. An industrial equipment alternative is an FC setup away from the dusty environment to recharge batteries overnight and during breaks.
My comment was about solar panels
Solar deployments around mines can be far enough from the dusty areas. Today, tanks could bring a bunch of briefcase solar panels and when the tank is not moving and firing, its not that dusty. Cleaning is pretty easy for 20-50 panels too.
Fuel cells are the actual technology that require special designs to deal with dust.
Also don’t fight at night. Or in the Arctic circle. Or really anywhere during winter. Or sandstorms. Dust storms. Overcast days. Rainy days. Snowy says.
Y’know what, just conduct all your warfare during beautiful clear sunny weather at daytime. Why would you want to fight in crappy weather anyway?
hydrogen as an alternative to electric is definitely not a ploy by big oil to keep drilling for fossil fuels!
What are you talking about?
Basically all of hydrogen production is sourced from fossil fuels.
Basically, burning hydrogen is roughly 4 times worse than burning diesel right now.
Huh, I somehow thought the production method had shifted to renewable energy.
It will. Including for military applications, H2 can be produced more securely and distributed from energy independent renewables than from large refineries blown up the first day of war, that also require import supply chains.
Can’t wait to see what the N-Line will look like
Holy fuck that’s a sexy tank
It looks like a miniature
it looks like a bastard kid of PL01 and Abrams-X
This is what I wish the cyber truck was more like … Not that I would ever buy a Tesla but this thing is perfect for futuristic… Now make it a car… But also fuck cars
What if it had hydrogen cells instead?
Does noise really matter that much on a modern battlefield with one surveillance drone every 200 meters?
the other feature is low to no heat, so these things are like tank drop bears
drop bears
Instance checks out
Yeah, it would make them a lot harder to spot on infra red cameras.
Pretty chill for the operators at least. Tanks are loud as fuck
Most NATO countries are assuming air dominance, which would make drones less survivable. They really thrive in a contested environment.
I don’t know that NATO’s assumption of air dominance is actually applicable. You’re not putting a F-35 on anti-drone swarm duties.
If anything you’d want to focus on anti-air.
It’s beautiful and I want one.
Maybe Pepsi will do a new challenge
It looks like a piece of EGO brand lawn equipment (which I also like the look of).
Capable of the highest next-generation turret toss!
If in video standards the decision made by the porn industry is decisive, I believe that in the energies of the future the decision made by the military industry will be the one that prevails.
The navies of the world love nuclear power, the U.S. has a nuclear navy since the 50s and in that time our investment into civilian nuclear has been pathetic
For ships it may be fine, but I don’t see ground vehicles or fighters operating with nuclear energy, it could be, but until I see it I will have a hard time believing it.
I’ll eat my socks if hydrogen powered tanks are actually purchased by any military. Hydrogen will literally never be a viable transportation fuel
I don’t have enough knowledge to argue with your words. A couple of years ago Germany introduced an electric tank. When the armies make requests for one option or another we will have the real answer
Electric tank, sure. Hydrogen tank, never.
Ooh sexy
Idk it looks a little plasticy. Fake armor implants are great sometimes but you don’t want a whole division of it.
