(September 10, 2023 at 2:38 pm)GUBU Wrote:(September 8, 2023 at 7:27 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: It's essentially a dressed-up T-34 engine.
The engine they chose for the T-14 was so good and so efficient that the company making it couldn't even sell it to pump water. The whole X-shaped design has been known to be a bad one for decades. Hence why nobody's brought it beyond concept stage despite the design being around since before WW2.
X-engines have both cooling and precision issues, true.
My understanding is that the Armata's engine is essentially an upgraded T-34 engine -- as used in the T-55 -- mirror-imaged by welding another of the same engine opposite. Getting four camshafts to cooperate (as opposed to two) is more than doubly hard, which is why engines like the Rolls-Royce Vulture, as an example, were failures in ops.
That difficulty increases as well with engine displacement and per-piston power-output -- combine the two problems, yeah, it's a mess.