Don't forget that tank engines were tuned down for lower RPMs and high
torque, while aircraft engines were uniformly tuned for high revs and
high horsepower. One of the ways they did this was by using
superchargers, which would have been totally useless in tanks. Amongst
other things, the heat generated by high-output engines would have
rendered them useless in tanks.
It's interesting to note that the Ford GAA engine in the Sherman M4A3 was
an off-shoot of an aircraft design, with the last four cylinders looped
off and the whole thing radically detuned.
This at least gives the American tank industry a degree of credibility in
contrast to that of the British, who kept using under-powered, converted
bus engines in their tanks. It would indeed be interesting to have a
first-hand, comparative appraisal of those various Sherman engines (from
a user's standpoint).
Geoff
Andreas Mehlhorn wrote:
> interesting to read that Chrysler needed 30 cylinders and 1253 ci
> to get 425 horsepowers.
>
> In Germany there was such a multibank engine, too. At the end
> of WW2 a 48 cylinder aircraft engine was designed. It had H-shape,
> four rows of each 12 cylinders working on two crankshafts.
>
> The performance was 5000 brake horsepowers. As an aircraft engine
> it had twin sparks, so you needed 96 spark plugs.
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