
Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles - okket
https://taskandpurpose.com/darpa-wheel-combat-vehicles/
======
killjoywashere
As a military officer, I pray these never make it past Test and Evaluation.
They took essentially one part and turned it into 1000 parts. Anyone who has
seen what 20 year old Marines do with these machines, let alone what happens
in war, will appreciate that this is a fantastically horrible idea in a war
zone. I need high reliability, not high zoot. Let NASA have high zoot.

~~~
webbrahmin
These were my thoughts also. During WW II German tanks were technologically
superior to Russian tanks. However Russian tanks were easy to repair in the
field and that was one of the reasons why Russian armour prevailed over German
armour.

~~~
Theodores
No, no, no, the comedy tank of the era was the Sherman Tank.

[https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-m-4-sherman-tank-was-
he...](https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-m-4-sherman-tank-was-hell-on-
wheels-and-a-death-trap-502b0d99e744)

Favourite quote: Hence, the Sherman’s grim nickname—Ronson, like the cigarette
lighter, because “it lights up the first time, every time.”

Everything was wrong about it and the Russians that got given these on Lend
Lease knew that they had been given a death sentence. Aforementioned article
just touches the surface, the barrel was too short, the 'tech' for being able
to shoot on the move did not work and you needed five of the things to take
out one German tank, four as cannon fodder (complete with the guys inside) and
one to sneak around the back to get that German tank whilst it was busy taking
out the other four.

The 5 Shermans vs 1 Panzer myth is much disputed however where there is smoke
there is fire and I would not want to be in one. Plus, by the time that the
Americans rocked up to fight WW2 - which was late to the party - the Germans
had run out of oil so their tanks were running on recycled coal dust extract
rather than the diesel fuel required.

The shoddy design of the Sherman Tank was no matter though, the 'allies' were
expected to pay for these useless behemoths after the war so this was the
military-industrial-complex and built-in-obsolescence at its finest.

Meanwhile the Soviets had a much more serious war on their hands so their
hardware wasn't about making a quick buck. It had to be fit for purpose. The
same thinking happens today hence we have toy planes like the F-35 where
everyone and his pet congressman is getting a backhander vs. the fit for
purpose planes of Russia, as advertised over the skies of Syria and doing much
better in the global arms trade.

~~~
evgen
This is the sort BS stories that capture the imagination of people who don’t
know what they are talking about but are trivially disproven by actual facts
and statistics. At US entry to the war the Sherman has equivalent tank and
crew losses due to fire as similar tanks from other countries and by the end
of the war The Sherman was the _least_ likely tank to suffer an ammunition
fire of all the major tanks fielded in the war by a very large margin. The
biggest tell for this if you look at the stats is to compare vehicle losses
and crew losses (e.g. a penetrated Sherman frequently lost one crew member
while a T-34 with a similar hit that causes a loss of the tank frequently only
had one survivor.) Oh, and the erroneous derogatory term popularized by Belton
Cooper's widely discredited book was "Tommy Cooker" and not Ronson.

The T-34 was fit for purpose for certain, as long as the purpose was to leave
a trail of broken-down tanks from factory to battlefield. Prior to 1944 more
T-34s were lost to mechanical problems than to enemy action.

~~~
what-the-grump
Did the US engage the Germans in heavy armor combat similar to that of the
Russia’s e.g when Hitler was trying to take Moscow?

~~~
evgen
Infrequently. The US were early proponents of combined arms tactics. Find
heavy armour? Call in artillery or air support -- one of the advantages of
owning the airspace over the battlefield.

Oh, and the only Tiger tanks that got close to Moscow are the captured ones on
display at Kubinka.

~~~
isk517
The US Shermans were equipped with cannons that had weaker armor penetration
by design so that they could fire more potent high energy rounds that would
take out infantry since they were expect to meet very little tank resistance.
I think part of the 5:1 myth is from the fact that out of a platoon of 5
Shermans only 1 would be equipped with a gun that could penetrate a Tiger from
the front.

~~~
evgen
Correct. US pre-war tank doctrine was that enemy armor should be taken out
with AT guns and dedicated tank destroyers (e.g. M10 & M36) while the Shermans
were infantry support and to create and take advantage of breakthroughs to
flank the enemy or take out supply and ammo depots. For US units all tanks in
the platoon of four tended to be the same, but UK tank corps that had Sherman
Fireflys available (a Sherman with a British 17 lb gun stuffed into the
turret) would often run one Firefly per platoon since the 17 lb gun could
engage and destroy at range any German tank it encountered. This was why the
longer barrel on the Firefly tank was often camouflaged to look like a short
75/76mm gun to reduce the chance that it would be identified and targeted.

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frankharv
I am not easily wowed but I got to say it.WOW. The transition from track to
round again had a couple of bumps. Its amazing what we can do these days. I
wonder if it's a pneumatic, hydraulic or an electrically actuated assembly.
Looks like a hydraulic braking system.

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donarb
This design was actually developed by Carnegie Mellon's National Robotics
Engineering Center in partnership with DARPA.

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mc32
Other than military applications. Looks like this could have potential for
snow-bound vehicles. Ski areas and backcountry in the winter.

~~~
rootusrootus
Definitely. The concept was commercialized years ago. E.g.
[http://www.zonepowertrack.com/en](http://www.zonepowertrack.com/en)

~~~
mirimir
Yes, but static.

And actually, it's an old thing, in that Model T conversion kits came out in
1922.[0] Also, later, for mud and sand.

0)
[http://www.modeltfordsnowmobile.com/lcmainbriefhistory.htm](http://www.modeltfordsnowmobile.com/lcmainbriefhistory.htm)

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voltagex_
Put this on a wheelchair, please.

~~~
LoSboccacc
Yeah if the weight isn’t excessive it be great for mobility, looks like it
could also manage a stair mode with all those actuators.

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allannienhuis
Isn't the advantage of using tracks supposed to be the increased surface area
for traction and weight bearing? This seems to only slightly increase the
surface area. It doesn't seem that this would have enough traction advantage
to make the complexity worth it.

~~~
oh_sigh
The contact patch goes from ~ 1 sqft/tire to ~3-4 sqft/tire. That's pretty
significant.

~~~
Avshalom
Still if that 3-4ft^2 is in the air it's useless. This doesn't stop high
centering or driving into a ditch.

~~~
solarkraft
It does help with traction, though. That's an improvement over tires.

However I wonder why they accept the complexity/reliability problems I assume
come with this solution instead of going with _added_ (engageable on demand)
tracks.

~~~
stefco_
Since it's DARPA it's pretty far from being fielded, so I should think they're
only worried about proof of concept at this point. But if you could modularize
and ruggedize the wheels and make them easily replaceable and compatible with
existing vehicles, then I could certainly imagine this being quite practical
in certain situations.

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AndrewKemendo
That thing looks like a maintenance nightmare.

~~~
banku_brougham
And how often do humvees get stuck anyway? I like the product, but it’s
obviously wasteful. During the Iraq insurgency what was wanted was armor
plating. Literally just 1/4” slabs of steel.

This is of a piece with the F-35.

~~~
Swizec
Humvees get stuck a lot!

The US donated (I’m sure with wink wink strings attached) to us, Slovenia,
some years ago and it was quickly found that they are too large and cumbersome
for our foresty mountanous terrain. They’d get stuck all the time on tiny
roads or between trees.

I think these days they’re used for paraded to show we have them but day to
day the military keeps using their trusti Puchs from who knows when. Tiny and
manouverable.

~~~
qaq
US is not fighting in areas where getting stuck between trees is a big issue.

~~~
gpm
Given how much money the US spends on its military I'd expect them to be
prepared to fight just about anywhere.

Certainly in "foresty mountanous terrain" since that isn't particularly rare.
Exists inside of the US. Exists on both borders of the US. Etc.

Producing a military optimized for "blowing up unsophisticated enemies in
desserts" seems like a very shorted sighted way to spend the military budget.

(None of the above should be taken as me defending spending so much on the
military as a whole, just on the allocation of the budget within the military
to all sorts of terrain when taking the size of the current budget as a
given).

~~~
jandrewrogers
The US military has divisions that specialize in "foresty mountainous
terrain". There are parts of the world (and US) that are effectively
inaccessible to any mechanized units and the US military has large combat
units that are setup to operate effectively in those environments. Terrain
that is prohibitive to mechanized units is traditionally the domain of "light
infantry" divisions (e.g. 10th Mountain Division), distinct from mechanized
infantry divisions.

The US military has dedicated units and training facilities for virtually
every environment on Earth.

~~~
ryanmarsh
Yes unfortunately that makes for some miserable training.

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namirez
I don't understand the benefit of turning the whole wheel into a triangular
track; would it not be sufficient to make only the bottom third flat?

~~~
gnarbarian
If it wasn't symmetrical it would be far more difficult to balance properly
for when it's rotating in "wheel mode"

~~~
ryanmarsh
Yah the real trick is seeing that thing spin perfectly at highway speed.

~~~
LoSboccacc
The vehicle in the video was already wobbling around madly at low speed, as it
is it’d be completely uncontrollable at highway speed and at whatever
frequency the wheel and suspension resonate.

We add grams to balance wheels to prevent damage to suspensions etc, this
thing seems just a dream for vehicle applications.

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protomyth
That would actually be pretty useful on some farm vehicles. No need to pick a
wheeled or tracked tractor, you can have both.

~~~
orbital-decay
...for twice the price.

~~~
Redoubts
First rule of military spending...

~~~
Johnny555
That would be _thrice_ the price.

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make3
That video at the end about the army throwing Humvees without properly setting
up the chutes was pretty incredible

~~~
sooper
From what I read, not so much "without properly setting up", more sabotage:
[https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-
army/2017/07/05/soldier-...](https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-
army/2017/07/05/soldier-charged-in-failed-humvee-air-drop/)

~~~
UncleEntity
Makes me wonder why nobody checked their work, parachute failures get
investigated pretty thoroughly so it's not like you're going to get away with
burning in a few hummers.

Though "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by
stupidity." Back in '90 or so I was on the ground crew for a jump they were
doing to impress some Soviet generals and they jumped with too high winds
which resulted in two arty canons and a sheridan tank burning in (they got to
oscillating so bad the chutes collapsed) and three planes worth of troops
ending up in the trees. Bad day to jump but made for an interesting day on the
ground.

~~~
ryanmarsh
DZSO was either begging them to stop or should’ve been relieved for cause.

~~~
UncleEntity
I _think_ the wind died down temporarily just in time for the go/no go
call...was on a jump where that happened and it was nowhere near a fun
landing.

Thinking further on the heavy drop thing, from what I remember the crew who's
vehicle it was were the ones doing most of the rigging with the riggers mostly
just checking their work. Too many eyes for it to be an accident methinks.

------
pweissbrod
Wouldnt it be a better/simpler design to just have big tires that can change
pressure instead

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ryanmarsh
_Glorious news for all privates who’ve ever had to haul a Humvee out of a mud-
filled ditch_

I’ve seen plenty of tanks get stuck but honest to god I don’t ever recall a
HMMWV getting stuck. I used to try to get my HMMWV stuck. That thing is geared
so low it just walked out of soup up to the hood. Tracks are advantageous when
more surface area is needed to spread the weight out, like soft wet ground
(mud) or very fine loose (think sand dunes). It will be nice to have the added
mobility for certain missions but I don’t see this becoming organic to most
units. The vast majority of missions just don’t need these wheels and they
look like they’ll break.

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peterwwillis
They could support tracks on existing vehicles by making new hubs/shafts. You
remove the hub, add a shaft extension, replace the hub, then get spare rims
and tracks out of the boot and do an Indy 500-style fast wheel change. If you
hustled my bet is you could do this in 2 minutes with four people. Would add
significant unsprung weight but would support existing vehicles.

If you modify the vehicle you can support this without changing the hub and
shaft/extension, just change the wheels and add tracks. But I'm assuming they
wanted to work with a mostly stock vehicle.

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Shorel
I can't wait to see the next batmobile with these reconfigurable wheels.

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dEnigma
Interesting concept, but it looks like it wobbles around quite a lot in
"wheel-mode"; and this is at the very low speeds shown in the video. I think
it's reasonable to assume that it would be almost uncontrollable at higher
speeds (leading to damage to itself and other components over time). As others
have already mentioned, maintenance would be much more complex too with so
many moving parts, all of which could potentially be damaged; and it certainly
would be more expensive than a simple wheel.

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newnewpdro
"Global War on Terror"

Capitalized as if it's a movie title, is strangely unsettling to me.

~~~
0xfeba
Always reminds me of the Wikipedia article that always used to give me a
chuckle, since merged: List of wars on concepts[0]

    
    
      [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_wars_on_concepts&redirect=no

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amai
Russia did reinvent the wheel a long time ago:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afJ18eJeNgU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afJ18eJeNgU)

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PhasmaFelis
I'm curious how it affects performance in wheel mode.

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TheArcane
With that amount of funding, they'd better.

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m1el
I'd like to see it go ride through sandy road. or a gravel road.

I'd also like the inventor to use it for a year.

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bengrunfeld
As a previous soldier (commander of a hummer unit), there are serious
challenges that the terrain offers. Bits of sand and rock get into EVERYTHING
when you're driving over them. All those small complex moving parts could
easily become a nightmare if they got stuck full of grit. Hopefully their
engineering takes this into account.

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bunkydoo
This is some good work, shows that taking a new approach to things can
sometimes be delightfully tantalizing. But remember, the guys at DARPA want to
go home and have a beer as well :-)

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allthenews
So they took a simple wheel and added a couple hundred parts, increasing cost,
maintnence complexity, failure potential, and weight. Is it worth it?

~~~
strken
That's the point of RnD, though, right? Try a hundred things, extensively test
ten of them, end up with one or two that actually work.

~~~
st26
And, if you're lucky, also end up with ten neat brand new ideas that are
spawned by the RnD that lead to entirely new things.

All the tech that went into this wheel, might coincidentally open other doors,
that lead to still other doors...

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mrfusion
What’s the benefit though?

~~~
cocktailpeanuts
read the article. it's the first sentence.

~~~
mrfusion
I mean what’s the benefit of this design for rough Terrian. Obviously I read
the article.

~~~
detaro
As with any tracked vehicle: Larger, flat surface area touching the ground
results in better grip on soft ground and is less prone to sinking in. Small
track-sections like here obviously aren't as good at that as full, tank-style
treads, but easier to add to a wheeled vehicle and allow normal steering.

There's all kinds of companies making conversion kits to such (non-shape-
shifting) small tracks for trucks and SUVs, not sure if there's a military
example of that exact style.

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JohnJamesRambo
There’s something deeply poetic to this that DARPA didn’t understand the
wisdom in what the “reinvent the wheel” phrase means. This seems to embody
every bit of its meaning. Replace rubber tires which are brain dead simple and
work very well with zero maintenance with this complicated monstrosity that I
have many doubts about even being an improvement.

~~~
toomanybeersies
It's literally DARPA's job to fund pie in the sky projects, in the hope that
maybe some of them might be practical.

The internet was born of a DARPA project, Siri was made with technology spun
off from another. Project MAC was filled with groundbreaking research and
development of AI and operating systems. All modern operating systems can
trace their lineage back to Project MAC. The origins of GPS are also from an
earlier DARPA project.

Most DARPA projects will never be used in an operational environment, but the
technology discovered and lessons learned inevitably find their way into other
projects and technologies.

