Peter Dow

Well I have got a lot to say on that question. MRAP luggage compartments / trailers / passenger trailers are something I want to feature in my new design. It isn't really a "catamaran" feature particularly because a mono-hull MRAP could have a luggage compartment, outside the armour-protected volume and trailers are already available for today's MRAPs. A trailer is a trailer, right? But I hear complaints from many sources about passenger cabins not being spacious, can't afford to make them smaller and so on. The thing is, if you always put the gear the troops are carrying (heavy guns and ammunition etc.) in a trailer it saves space in the passenger cabin right? So then the armoured passenger cabins could be made smaller, and the gear stored in a non-armoured volume, either a luggage compartment - a boot or a trunk which can be low, lowering centre of gravity, or in a trailer, which also takes the weight off the MRAP wheels which helps to prevent road collapse. So for all kinds of reasons I am thinking that pulling a luggage trailer and a non-armoured boot/trunk should be integral to a good MRAP design, not just an optional extra. So why don't MRAPs use trailers more, when road collapse, heavy weight on the wheels is such a problem? I know that to use or not to use a trailer is an operation decision that the military make but if anyone knew if trailers were a bad idea for some reason, then would you please point that out. OK for existing MRAPs (some of which don't have a fixed gun) I can see why the passengers want to keep their weapons with them so that they can dismount guns blazing. Frankly, a "no fixed gun" APC is a really bad design in my opinion. Even one gun is too little in my opinion. Defence against ambush is why you need fixed guns on every APC roof. My design would include a minimum of one gun on each side of the catamaran MRAP. Actually, I would like 4 guns on top; that is possible and if you read on I will explain how. Only the guns and video cameras (2 per gun, one wide-angle, the other telescopic sights) need to be on the roof. There is no need for a gunner up top in a gunner's turret with all the high up weight and instability that causes. The gunner can be sat in the cabin with the rest of the crew and fire and aim the gun from below. Think of a submarine periscope in terms of turning and aiming the gun, although the gunner would remain seated in one position if he (or she) views the gun camera views on a LCD display. Push buttons to change camera view and push button to fire. For reloading "the periscope" can come down to allow the gunner to reach the gun to reload in safety. 2 or 4 guns, medium machine guns can be up top and because there is no armour up there, it could work out with a lower centre of gravity than one gunner with an armoured turret. Of course an armoured passenger trailer would have guns of its own as well. There is no reason why passengers cannot always carry a handgun which takes up no space. That and cover from fixed guns should be sufficient I would have thought. Sure I could imagine a scenario when you'd really like to fire a guided missile the second you open the passenger door. Well you still could do that and carry weapons inside in a smaller cabin if you were not carrying a full load of passengers. MRAP armoured passenger trailers In fact, why not have an armoured trailer with a V-shaped hull (or two V-shaped hulls for a catamaran trailer) and carry some of the passengers there? Then you could really reduce the weight of the MRAP - a much smaller front cabin, much less volume needing protecting in the front vehicle, spreading the weight across more wheels. I think the armoured passenger trailer idea is a winner, catamaran or no catamaran and it is a concern that existing MRAPs don't use this concept already. B) Well admittedly, changing the shape of the V-shape to allow for a vertical blast chimney does also increase the hull area as well. The diagram with sides 1 to 4 doesn't show the "slight" change in V-shape which also effectively negates the claim associated with that diagram of "equal area". So yet again fair comment. Well done. The cross sectional weight of hull goes up and you need to think about using trailers, more wheels to spread the increased weight around, sure. Correct the "interior" hull walls are exposed to blast. The inner hull armour 2 & 3 can afford to be somewhat thinner for the same level of protection because it is shielded from square-on attacks from IED or mine fragments because ground blasts from IEDs and mines are imparting against the inner surface of the vertical blast chimney at an oblique angle which presents less of a danger. Whereas the outer hulls, as with a conventional MRAP, could have fragments heading straight towards them. The penetration threat is mostly from fragments rather than gas blast. The gas of a blast is not so piercing and blows things apart by exceeding tensile strength across a dispersed area of an object's surface - not nearly so problematic for armour designers.

When you change configuration you are changing the connecting bars between the two Y-side vehicles. So the mechanic or the trained crew would unbolt and remove the connecting bars you want to change drive one of the Y-sides to about the right new position for the new bars attach the bars and tighten them up to bring the Y-sides to the right distance apart. Oh you are not talking about the hulls, but the sides above the hulls, the parts not drawn in the above diagram? OK I am with you now. Fair comment. You might get away with the inner sides being somewhat less thick armour than the outside since the chances of getting a hit and a square-on hit especially from an RPG or something are less because the inner side is shielded to some degree by the other side. But yes, there is no avoiding that 4 sides are always going to weigh more than 2 sides. Look on the bright side then. The upside of more weight is the vehicle will not be accelerated so much by a blast imparting the same impulse.

For the same area in the horizontal plane, the catamaran tank and the MRAP have essentially the same surface area and weight. To lessen the blast forces tending to split the two V-shaped hulls apart, the Vs can be angled slightly to form a vertical blast chimney. Considering the wheeled version of the catamaran tank only for now. Maybe the left and right sides while separated are 4 wheeled vehicles which you can drive independently, call those "half-vehicles" Y-sides. The Y-sides are tall and narrow and even less stable than an MRAP while separated but loading and unloading on and off transport and manoeuvring the sides in position to connect together the stability is sufficient. Then, when you come to bolt the two Y-sides together there are a number of choices as to how wide apart the left and right hand Y-sides are fixed. I'll type in some figures so you can see what I mean. Say, the separated Y-sides are 4 feet wide. Well for example, the connecting bars or tubes could hold the left and rights Y-sides together separated by these example widths: 1 foot, Y1Y so the total width is 4 + 1 + 4 = 9 feet - no wider than a Cougar MRAP and so as stable as todays MRAPs and narrow enough for urban roads and traffic. 4 feet, Y4Y so the total width is 4 + 4 + 4 = 12 feet, the same as an M1 battle tank, good for country roads, stable but narrow enough to get across most bridges no problem. 8 feet, Y8Y so the total width is 4 + 8 + 4 = 16 feet, super-stable for open cross country off road where the extra width is no problem for crossing bridges or fitting on roads because there are no roads maybe nothing more than a dirt track of uncertain width itself, maybe nothing but rough ground and rivers need to be forded or not crossed at all and then the extra stability is purely a bonus with no disadvantage of extra width. The vehicle could even carry the different lengths of connecting bars or tubes for the crew to swap round to change vehicle width which they can do themselves anywhere they can find a flat piece of ground - no special facilities required. The deluxe version could have a hydraulic telescoping connecting tubes to change vehicle width at the touch of a button! When the two Y-sides are connected together, the steering mechanisms of the two Y-sides are mechanically coupled together, somehow! There could be power steering as well! The catamaran tank still has V-shaped hulls to deflect the blast. It just has 2 V-shaped hulls, each of half the width of a single V-shaped hull. The catamaran tank can have the same total area of V-shaped hull measured in the horizontal plane as a single-hulled MRAP! There is not much more area for the explosive force to react with in the catamaran tank because the space between the two hulls is mostly empty space with just connecting bars or tubes! The benefit is this - it doesn't roll over! The catamaran tank - an MRAP which doesn't roll over!

Hi Newbie here! I was going to post this in the politics forum but as a Newbie I don't seem to have the permissions I need so I will post here. I am a banned, as in excluded from university, science student. Well it all happened years ago - I am now 48 - and these days I have turned to political writing because that is at least possible to do on your own these days with the internet. I have a computer science degree from the University of Edinburgh (1982) and after working as a college lecturer and some time on the dole I came here to Aberdeen to do a post-graduate course in Information Technology (Medical Physics) - sort of IT people making themselves useful in medicine. Anyway that didn't work out and I had a big argument with the university staff and management and they called in lawyers and there were court orders banning me from the campus and gagging orders from the court stopping me from publishing leaflets and threats to put in me in jail for life for contempt of court. So anyway, after being condemned to the dole years later I thought I was getting another chance when I got to start a second science degree part time in Biomedical sciences at the other university in Aberdeen, Robert Gordon University but although I was top of the class in the first term I was excluded for being outspoken. Here is a page with some newspaper clips and other documentation about how the universities here have excluded me. Universities - http://scot.extroverthost.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=181#181'>http://scot.extroverthost.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=181#181 Anyway I just felt that similar warm glow of solidarity from my fellow academics here in Aberdeen as must have been felt by Jewish and political opponents of the Nazis as the Gestapo came to take them out of the campus and to concentration and extermination camps and they too were overjoyed about how the mass of fellow academics all sprang to their rescue - not. So here is a video profiling me these days and a few links to my website and forums. Well what I do it is not science mostly and I am not sure how effective I am politically but I keep myself busy all alone here in Aberdeen. Scottish republican socialist Peter Dow, author and protester (video) http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=789SkK7uwiY Peter Dow's Scottish National Standard Bearer website http://scot.extroverthost.com/ The For Freedom Forums - http://scot.extroverthost.com/forfreeset.htm Register your own username and password - http://scot.extroverthost.com/forum/profile.php?mode=register A guide to how to register your username - http://scot.extroverthost.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=281 So I guess my question is - what does it feel like to be loved and appreciated, by someone OTHER than your mother (and I am not too sure my mum understands me either)?