One for new guy Mark A.

[Scooterman]

Saw this at the Texas State Fair of all places.......




(sorry for crappy pics.  thru glass with phone camera)

[Queeg]

Very cool ........ if anyone could get the York system to work it would be the Israelis. My understanding is that the real reason it was a flop is because the APU couldn't deliver enough stable current when all the systems were juiced up and the fire-control systems kept shutting down and re-booting during aquisition and tracking tests.

Bit similar to the problems with the NASA Lem except whereas Neil Armstrong could take over manually and make a moon landing SgtYork gunners couldn't manually hit simulated migs ...... 

[Volkodav]

The radar was also picking up the barrel muzzles and identifying them as targets.  The whole project was a sad case of mashing MOTS components together and hoping they worked, mounting the turret on old M-48 hulls was perhaps the silliest part as, even if they eventually solved all the other issues, it guaranteed the vehicle would never be able to keep up with the Abrams and Bradleys it was meant to protect.

I believe the issues included:

• M-48 hull too slow to keep up with M-1 & M-2
  APG-66 derived radar suffered from clutter issues
  Guns burst rate of fire was too low
  Turret tarverse too slow to track and engage targets

It did look cool though.
[/list]

[Mark Aldrich]

Very neat idea but the builder should have used the ERA bricks Off the old ESCI M60!  When I did my Merkava ADA I chose the Gepard because the York was cancelled.  I do however, plan on mating the M247 turret to a M1A1 hull to show the York as it should have been!  You can't expect to take the tracking system out of an F-16 Falcon and mount it onto a Vietnam era hull and expect it to work properly.  I was under the impression that the major issues were not being able to engage anything over it's rear deck (heat) and that the sytem still could not differentiate between house, trees, and targets.  In the air, these issues were not a problem.  One or more threat aircraft and sky!!

[Queeg]

It did look cool though.
[/list]

This is the bit that works for me everytime ..... 

As an aside, has anyone ever found any US docs evaluating the ZSU23/4, that might be an interesting read ......

[Mark Aldrich]

I like the looks of the ZSU 57-2 better!  Open top but still wicked looking!

[raafif]

I have pics of two Abrams AA vehicles apparently as gate-guards - will post them when I find them in the electronic box.  The turrets are Abrams with twin AA guns plus side-mounted missiles like the Tungusa --guess it was a last-ditch effort before the idea was canned.

[Rickshaw]

Very cool ........ if anyone could get the York system to work it would be the Israelis. My understanding is that the real reason it was a flop is because the APU couldn't deliver enough stable current when all the systems were juiced up and the fire-control systems kept shutting down and re-booting during aquisition and tracking tests.

Bit similar to the problems with the NASA Lem except whereas Neil Armstrong could take over manually and make a moon landing SgtYork gunners couldn't manually hit simulated migs ......

My understanding is that the deathknell to the system was when it picked up the rotating fan blades on an exhaust fan on the range control building when they were testing it.   

Anyway, its real problem was that the US Army couldn't make it's mind up as to what its real role would be and then mounted it on surplus M48 chassis which couldn't keep up with the M1 equipped armoured units and its weapons were too short-ranged to be able to deter Soviet ATGW equipped helicopters (something already known when they decided on 40mm as its calibre).  One suspects that it was again a case of "Well, them Soviets have these things so we better get some!"   Same thing happened with the Sheridan.

[GTX_Admin]

I have pics of two Abrams AA vehicles apparently as gate-guards - will post them when I find them in the electronic box.  The turrets are Abrams with twin AA guns plus side-mounted missiles like the Tungusa --guess it was a last-ditch effort before the idea was canned.

Looking forward to this

[tahsin]

The thing in Turkish language forums is the system correctly identified the target was placed on the toilet window, from the fan signature on radar and the the Su-25 or some other type on the pole was a decoy . The thing might have hit the fan though, when the guns opened on the toilet shack...

[Volkodav]

The SGT York is a case study in the T&E Course I did as part of my post grad studies, i.e. how to doom a project through poor integration and project management.