PLAN Zubr Large Air Cushion Landing Craft

kwaigonegin

kwaigonegin

Colonel
Ronny S said:
Yes, the Zubrs are quite the overkill in SCS. I´m thinking this is one of the reasons that China will most likely use them there. The same reason as US navy has Super carriers.

Intimidation.

The mere presence of a supercarrier or two can sometimes prevent problems. I´m thinking that China may have similar intentions with the Zubrs.

And sometimes things happens fast in SCS, so the high speed of Zubrs would be useful.

At one time an island in the Spratleys was controlled by the Philliphines. They had a number of marines stationed on the island. For some reason, all of the marines left the island for a short while.

Guess what they found when they came back? The Island was full of Chinese marines from a close by island.

As soon as the philliphine marines had left the Island, the Chinese moved in instead. If I´m not completely mistaken, this literary happened within minutes.

"They are leaving the island. Let´s go there. GO! GO! GO!"

The philliphines learned their lesson tough. ALWAYS keep personnel on the islands/reefs you claim. So this will most likely not happen again.

But it can be an example of how fast things could happen in SCS.
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A hovercraft is extremely useful in all the scenarios we've mentioned be it actual invasion or just men and materals around especially in those reclaim islands where a proper dock or base has not been set up yet. Heck if I' the planners I'll be using the Zubrs all the time.. Imagine brining in construction materials, workers etc and putting it right by the construction site!
As far as intimidation I would argue the opposite. Zubrs is the least intimidating of all. I mean all it has are a couple of cannons.
Surely less intimidating that an actual warship which guns, missiles etc. Heck if PLAN really wants to play the 'PR' game they could easily remove the CIWS in the meantime and use it as nothing more than a high speed ferry.
 
R

Ronny S

New Member
Registered Member
Antiterror13 is correct. It was Vietnam, not china, that took over the island. My bad.


A Zubr in itself is not that intimidating, I guess. But it is quite capable of landing a good amount of troops on a defended beach. It´s this capacity that could be used as a form of intimidation.

"If you mess with us, we´ll open up a can of Zubr on ya."

"Oh, they have those big, bad Zubrs. Better not mess with them."
 
SamuraiBlue

SamuraiBlue

Captain
Jeff Head said:
They have a range of 300 miles at 55 knots...which means at 35 knots they would be able to go significantly further.
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I doubt it since unlike surface ships, hoovercraft utilizes a great amount of energy to maintain float so whether it be 50 knots or 35 knots I do not think there would be much extension in range.
 
L

Lezt

Junior Member
SamuraiBlue said:
I doubt it since unlike surface ships, hoovercraft utilizes a great amount of energy to maintain float so whether it be 50 knots or 35 knots I do not think there would be much extension in range.
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Hover craft actually doesn't use much energy to hover (and they actually float with a boat bottom too in case the fan fails). A Zubr is 57m X 25.6m; ~1460 m2 the normal load is 415 tonnes, i.e. 284 kg/m2 or 2.78 kPa, or 0.4 PSI; you don't need a very powerful fan to do that. and indeed, hovercraft may be more efficient than hydrofoils or ground effect craft.
 
Jeff Head

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
SamuraiBlue said:
I doubt it since unlike surface ships, hoovercraft utilizes a great amount of energy to maintain float so whether it be 50 knots or 35 knots I do not think there would be much extension in range.
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Pushing the displacement/weight at higher speeds does however take more energy...so using less energy to travel slower would result in better fuel efficiency over those miles.

Perhaps not as much savings as a standard hull, but less nonetheless.
 
D

delft

Brigadier
Lezt said:
Hover craft actually doesn't use much energy to hover (and they actually float with a boat bottom too in case the fan fails). A Zubr is 57m X 25.6m; ~1460 m2 the normal load is 415 tonnes, i.e. 284 kg/m2 or 2.78 kPa, or 0.4 PSI; you don't need a very powerful fan to do that. and indeed, hovercraft may be more efficient than hydrofoils or ground effect craft.
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At the kind of speed you use them at. At that speed but a larger weight you might use hydrofoils. At a higher speed you go to wing in ground effect machines.
 
SamuraiBlue

SamuraiBlue

Captain
Lezt said:
Hover craft actually doesn't use much energy to hover (and they actually float with a boat bottom too in case the fan fails). A Zubr is 57m X 25.6m; ~1460 m2 the normal load is 415 tonnes, i.e. 284 kg/m2 or 2.78 kPa, or 0.4 PSI; you don't need a very powerful fan to do that. and indeed, hovercraft may be more efficient than hydrofoils or ground effect craft.
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When you start loading people and tanks it becomes considerably heavier requiring that much more energy to lift the darn thing up don't you think?
Once lifted it takes little effort to move it laterally since there is very little friction. At low speeds the most energy to move things is friction at contact point.
 
L

Lezt

Junior Member
SamuraiBlue said:
When you start loading people and tanks it becomes considerably heavier requiring that much more energy to lift the darn thing up don't you think?
Once lifted it takes little effort to move it laterally since there is very little friction. At low speeds the most energy to move things is friction at contact point.
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Actually, that is a common misconception. the driving mechanism of the hovering is pressure and 451 tonnes on the foot print of the zubr is 0.4 psi.

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You can erect several hundred tonnes of concrete and built it as a building with a simple low pressure fan. the video shows 2 in.w.g. which is 0.07 PSI.

It is actually real physics; just take some time to wrap your head against, like a feather dropping in a vacuum is a fast as a rock - its contrary to human nature
 
SamuraiBlue

SamuraiBlue

Captain
Lezt said:
Actually, that is a common misconception. the driving mechanism of the hovering is pressure and 451 tonnes on the foot print of the zubr is 0.4 psi.
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There is one small problem to your logic. 0.4 psi may not sound big with a 1" pipe but when you need to exert that same amount of pressure evenly through two or more 15 m diameter fans then it becomes a big problem.
That is about 618,110Kg of air needed to be displaced per second.
I wonder how strong that fans requires to be and how much fuel it would take to run it?
 
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