Perhaps someone can 'splain this to me- what are the pros and cons of rubber v. steel rimmed road wheels on tracked vehicles? I have some theories, but would prefer facts on this.
Also, what are the pros/cons of rubber pads on the tracks v. all steel links?
I’m just curious as to why one country, say the US, would go with rubber rims on rubber padded tracks whereas another country wouldn’t. Is it as much an economic decision as it is mechanical or what?
Rubber-rimmed wheels provide a smoother ride and induce less contact wear on the tracks than steel-rimmed wheels. Steel-rimmed wheels were adopted by the Germans (as well as the Russians to a degree) as a way to avoid using a hard-to-get strategic resource/raw-material as the war went on.
As far as the choice between steel or rubber tracks, steel tracks trace their heritage back to the original catepillar style farm tractor tracks…all-steel was the norm and the US was the only one to really go in for rubber-block style tracks during the War. Had more to do with the choice of a “live” suspension where the tracks are under constant tension vs. the other designs of “dead” steel tracks. In reading Belton Cooper’s memoir about US armored units in Europe, he does mention that the US rubber tracks lasted far longer and needed to be changed less frequently than their German all-steel counterparts, so there was an advantage there as well. Also have to consider that the twin main purposes of the track system are to 1) distribute the weight of the vehicle across a wider surface area and thereby reduce its ground-pressure load and 2) provide better cross-country performance vs. a wheeled system.
Lets not forget, no flat tires. Otherwise it’d be trivial to just airdrop a bunch nails accross a field and bang enemy is stuck changing tires.
I can see the logic behind the desire for reduced track/rim wear by using rubber contact surfaces, but reduced vibration? How much vibration reduction are we talking about on a multi-ton vehicle? The difference between tooth grinding, migrane inducing high frequency buzzing and a lesser level of torment? I don’t wish to be too flippant, but isn’t crew comfort among some of the last design criteria for an AFV? Reducing vibration for sensitive components, well OK, I could buy that. But wouldn’t such instrumentation have vibration damping built into it?
Or does all of this begin to loop around on itself in a great circle of problem/solution=new problem/new solution?
It’s these Great Questions that keep me up at night…[D)]
Remember also that the German “steel wheels” as applied to the late Tiger, Panther and KT/JT were not a simple one-piece deal. These were a multi-part assembly with internal rubber bushings which provided a measure of dampening.
rubber pad tracks are also easier on the roads than all metal…
Crew endurance, imagine rolling down down the road in a car with all steel wheels. The vibration would wear you out quick. Add rubber tires and you can handle a longer ride.
There’s also the issue of weight and wear…for example the steel-wheel Panther didn’t work out due to excessive incidents of breaking guide-horns and damaging the tracks with prolonged use under in-field conditions. It’s also why the Russians went back to using rubber-rimmed tires, in at least some stations, on the T-34s vs. an all-steel wheel design…they stayed with all-steel only with the KV/JS/IS chassis because of their relatively low speed and lack of flexibility with the original design to accomodate rubber-rimmed wheels.
Vibration is more than just about crew comfort, it’s also about excessive stress and wear on moving parts and the suspension. Anecdotes abound on the complicated process of having to change out a damaged or worn torsion bar for example on the complex interleaved suspension designs of the German tanks. These are multi-ton vehicles we are talking about…and travelling at speed across country or on roads subjects them to a lot of stress. It may seem strange to think of them as being delicate/susceptible to things like this given their presence in the imagination as being massive steel monsters, but in reality they were complex engineered (some cases over-engineered) machines that had to take these kinds of things into consideration. [;)]