Comment by newnewpdro | Hacker News Reader

Comment by newnewpdro | Hacker News Reader

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> In WW2 the Germans fitted aircraft engines to their tanks, which worked great when the engines ran, but too often they didn't due to battlefield conditions. (Germany was also terribly short of avgas, which crippled those tanks.)

This sounded interesting so I skimmed the tanks mentioned in [0] and only found mention of prototypes exploring use of a turboshaft engine [1] from [2]. [1] explicitly states "none of these was fitted operationally", so I don't get the impression that these ever even encountered battlefield conditions before Panther II was canceled.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tanks_in_World_War_II

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GT_101

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panther_II_tank#Engine

Don't know about the Germans, but the British used modified aero engines quite extensively in tanks - https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Rolls-Royce_Meteor

Indeed, my grandfather was in one in Italy late in the war. From the stories he told, the crew one time got it up to 40MPH, then the crankshaft snapped.

That's pretty smart, using de-tuned aviation engines.

But unlike what WalterBright is describing, these were appropriately reconfigured to not require high-octane fuel.

I didn't mean a gas turbine engine, but a piston engine designed for aircraft. (Gas turbines don't run on avgas.)

With a quick look I can't find a cite for my claim, just that the British did use Merlin aviation engines in some of their tanks.

I couldn't find mention of anything else aviation-related in the per-tank pages, and the Maybach WWII engines page [0] doesn't speak to it either.

Do you have any good references we can check out?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WWII_Maybach_engines

I have a few hundred books on WW2, it's possible I'm mis-remembering it. I am ashamed :-(

No worries, I was just curious to read about it.

You'd made a possibly related claim a few months back, if that stirs any memories:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21953121

"I have seen desperate mechanics try to warm up their engines with a naked flame in the hope of inducing them to start."

  -- "Stuka Pilot" by Hans Rudel, pg. 50

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