Cost of 21st Century Tank Engine/Powerplant ?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Racer

I've seen up to $2,000,000 Dollars US for a current Models Abram's Turbine, and yet only £200,000 to £380,000 quotes according to British Military guys for current/recent models of Challenger 2's Perkins Diesel Engine (ever one asked gives different figures).

$1-2M for the Abrahams' turbine and £200-400,000 for the Challenger 2's diesel looks perfectly plausible for the present day. Neither engine is in mass production as of now; both would have been cheaper while they were.

Tank engines are specialised for tanks, having been designed to fit into minimum space, and to run on a wider variety of fuels. If the characters can't get the right engine for the vehicle they have, improvisations with other large diesel engines will be possible, but the penalties will be steep:

• Unless they are extraordinarily lucky, an engine that will fit in the space available will be much less powerful, 600HP at most, maybe as little as 200HP. That will make the tank much slower, and less capable of climbing slopes.
• Unless they are extraordinarily lucky, again, separately, they're going to need a serious engineering workshop to adapt a different engine to the transmission. A workshop for heavy earthmoving equipment would substitute for a tank workshop, but the job would take longer.
• It will only run on proper diesel fuel, but that's a minor problem.

The low power is the biggest problem. There's a simple number that tells you a lot about tank performance, which is horsepower per ton. 20HP/ton is the magic number, at which a tank becomes lively and highly mobile. A few tanks serve as an example:

M1 Abrahams: 23.8
T-90A: 21.5
T-72: 18.8
T-90: 18.2
Challenger 2: 16
Panther: 13.8
Centurion: 13
Tiger: 11.5
Chieftain: 11.1

A Challenger 2 with a substitute 400HP engine would be down at 5.33, really slow, and easy to bog down.

Tracking down the engine that was removed from the tank seems like a good idea. People who work with that kind of equipment are reluctant to scrap it while it still works, so it may be in a different storage location. If it was in a tank that was killed. it's worth checking how long ago and how much damage the engine took.