<VV> Re: Air-cooled V-12

[Tony Underwood]

At 11:12 hours 11/17/2005, Thesuperscribe at cs.com wrote:
>I'm coming into this thread late, but here's a comment on the Continental
>V-12 diesel in M-60 (and M-48A3) battle tanks... The engine was (is) 
>air-cooled,
>so wouldn't it be neat to slip one into the back of a Rampside?


The problem is that the engine is so large it would occupy almost the 
entire bed of a rampside.


>Also, while the reference (below) sent in by Tony states its horsepower as
>750, we we told by the Army's Armor School folks in 1965 (a l-o-n-g time ago)
>that the rating was cut to 742.5 hp, due to a switch to leaner injectors that
>caused less exhaust smoke. A cleaner environment was not the reason; 
>less smoke
>makes a tank harder to spot from a distance, or so they figured.


According to some data I looked up, this same engine today, with 
modifications and additional technological advances, can produce over 
1500 hp on milspec blends of kerosene (JP-6).    JP6 also has the 
advantage of not smoking anywhere as much as diesel, and you can run 
a military helicopter on it as well, what with its being the 
universal "army" fuel these days.


tony..