You have two indentical rally cars, apart from one has better suspension than the other, which one would you expect to win the race?
The one with better suspension, obviously.
Upgrading suspension means the tank experiences less resistance from obstacles it drives over, even very small ones, when driving offroad the surface is almost always uneven. The tank’s horsepower is therefore used more efficently when driving offroad, making it perform better than an indentical tank but with torsion bars.
Therefore hydrogas suspension would provide comparitively better performance offroad, however on a surface such as road, it would have no effect as the suspension is not needed on the flat surface.
The reason tanks such as the T72, Leopard 2 and Abrams use torsion bars is likely just because they are designed to be produced on a much larger scale than the Chally 2, Type 10, Leclerc etc and torsion bars are cheaper. Torsion bar suspension also requires a lot less maintenance than hydrogas, so easier on logistics. However, in terms of performance, every source I see states that hydrogas is overall superior.
I have not seen any reliable evidence that hydropneumatic suspension provides an improvement to mobility anywhere close to what is being described in this thread, just a lot of vague allusions to “improved offroad performance”.
Implementing this would require an entire overhaul of how suspension works in War Thunder. Not every hydropneumatic suspension system is equal, not every torsion bar suspension system is equal and so on. It would require data on the travel distance of every suspension system for every vehicle in the game. And I am unconvinced that the practical difference it would make would be anywhere near noticeable.
Gaijin dosen’t need to model it at such a complex level. Tanks with different suspension systems can simply be given different mobiity modifiers for soft terrain by gaijin, hydrogas and hydropneumatic would provide better modifiers than torsion bar.
Gaijin simplifies many things in War Thunder, for example every tank’s RHA armour has the same values, which is not accurate to real life.
Yes, but by “suspension characteristics” they denote things like weight needed for installation, how space efficiency they are etc (obviously torsion bar suspensions need more space, especially on the inside of the vehicle). That table is for the general characteristics which aren’t important here if we’re talking about cross-country mobility difference where dampening is about the most important feature.
We could however, include wheel travel length i.e how far up it can go before the suspension hits a hard stop (bump + rebound) - on Challengers it’s about ~450mm total. On Leopard 2s, the travel is 526mm, so it has better suspension travel (i.e. it can negate greater variation in terrain height without letting a “shock” hit the chassis) on top of the additional friction dampening elements offering as good of a performance as some/most Hydrogas models…
I’ll also add that Horstman has vested interest in promoting Hydrogas… well, they produce them. The studies are also not clear cut like you imagine - in the study for the BMP-1, how many dampeners did they assume to be installed? The more, the better the torsion suspension becomes as the force can be distributed more evenly, obviously if there’s only 2 dampeners in comparison to 6 In-Arm units, the latter will outperform the former.
This has nothing to do with cross country mobility. It’s just talking about how hydrogas suspension on a BMP-1 will give a smoother ride then the existing suspension.
The same study literally said “Hydrogas suspension due to their inherent non-linear behaviour can provide higher mobility and better ride comfort performance…”, I have just sent that extract.
Dampening is defined as “The process of controlling the oscillations or movement of the vehicle’s suspension system”, as we see from the diagram the hull and suspension movements with hydrogas are less extreme, therefore the dampening is better.
“Effective dampening reduces the amplitude and frequency of these oscillations”, once again we see the amplitude of the occilations is lower, so the dampening is better. The frequency is the same, but I assume this is controlled.
This contradicts the German study but actually provides us with real data (as you asked for), so I will go with the study I provided.
Not like BMP-1s suspension has just 4 hydraulic dampeners (2 on each side), and thus the total package is outright worse than it’d be if the vehicle were using Hydrogas instead, where each hydropneumatic suspension arm double-acts as a shock absorber (4 dampeners vs 12, can you imagine the difference?).
In the German document they assume an equal amount of dampeners on each side, leveling out the field in the process.
Maximum suspension travel is only really going to be relevant across extremely rough terrain, yes it is useful, but the vast majority of the time the tank will not be hitting its suspension travel limit. The suspension systems are also completely different, so maximum travel can mean different things for both.
The hydrogas suspension of the Challenger 2 is also adjustable and dependant on operating temperature etc… so that 450mm figure can change significantly dependant on conditions.
I’ve tried looking myself and can’t find exact figures for the Leo 2 and Chally 2 suspension travel, where did you get those numbers from?
The 450mm figure is the maximum travel Challenger’s 2nd generation hydrogas suspension offers. Yes, it is temperature dependent and thus it will only ever reach this figure under the highest of temperatures, under normal conditions, the suspension travel is unlikely to exceed 350mm, making it overall worse than Leopard 2s swing arm and torsion system when it comes to high-speed cross-country travel due to far lower bump + rebound limits.
I’ve tried looking myself and can’t find exact figures for the Leo 2 and Chally 2 suspension travel, where did you get those numbers from?
Ok, let me dumb this real down for you. The suspension on the challengers allow them to utilize the horspower more efficiently while going over rough terrain, thus allowing for a faster, and more stable ride. This is not some wonder technology that only we have access to, all it does is allow the challenger to have simialr (sometimes better) performance off road compared to something like the leo. This isnt a massive difference as irl tanks wouldn’t go more than 50kmh (im not even sure they would go this fast) on rough terrain as thats how you completely destroy your suspension (plus, its alot harder to spot dips in the terrain while inside a tank).
You come and say it does nothing yet give nothing to prove your right? please refrain from feeding us your brainrot any longer than you have to.
I see what you mean, however, the point still stands that the study shows that hydrogas suspension has better performance than just torsion bar suspension.
Does that mean torsion bar based suspension systems (with for example hydraulic dampeners) cannot achieve similar results to hydrogas suspension? No, they can. However, a purely torsion bar based system will be worse than a hydrogas system.
We are not nescessarily comparing just the Challenger 2 and the Leopard 2 for example, where the Leopard 2 has a more complex suspension system than just torsion bars.
There are many tanks ingame, mostly Russian/Chinese, which for sets of wheels they are either entirely or partially just on torsion bars with no dampeners. These types of vehicles should have worse suspension characteristics than more advanced suspension systems, including hydrogas. I cannot see external dampeners on the M1 Abrams, however, they may be internal.
Suspension is a very complex thing, however we can still conclude that tanks that soley or partially rely on purely torsion bar suspension should have worse performance than hydrogas suspension (or more advanced types of torsion bar suspension, including addition of dampeners)
The study also compares the 1960s torsion suspension of the BMP-1 to one of the most modern InArm systems, and it fails to account for the BMP’s suspension having fewer shock absorbers, and they’re likely not even of friction or hydraulic type, despite what I had stated before. As far as I’m concerned, this study cannot be used for making comparisons or stating that hydrogas is “superior” at any level other than in the specific case of the BMP-1.
We are not nescessarily comparing just the Challenger 2 and the Leopard 2 for example, where the Leopard 2 has a more complex suspension system than just torsion bars.
That is kind of my point. Leopard 2 uses a more complex system than a simple swing-arm like the BMP-1, so it can match or, in some cases, outperform hydrogas systems. On top of that, nobody in this day and age designs their suspensions to not use both past and recent developments, such as, for example, the advanced friction dampener system that can be found on the Leopard 2A7V.
To my knowledge, there haven’t been any recent or past studies that compared torsion and hydrogas suspensions in an unbiased way. Our best bet would be, not even gonna lie, to wait for somebody crazy enough to go and make measurements on the Leoaprd 2A7Vs suspension and compare it to the Challenger 3s 3rd generation hydrogas system. These two are the pinnacle of their respective suspension schools of thought, after all.
I cannot see external dampeners on the M1 Abrams, however, they may be internal.
