Whenever a tracked vehicle has its tracks damaged, the crew are left vulnerable.
Today’s invention is therefore to equip such a vehicle with some road wheels which, when a track breaks, are capable of running directly on the ground.
These would each have independent motors, for maximal survivability.
The speed of movement might be very slow and uncertain on soft ground but in many circumstances this would be sufficient to escape, since each of the motors could be driven in such a way as to provide for rudimentary steering.
Yes this problem is very tricky: you need a high torque low speed motor which will take away a lot of your diesel power horses just for moving few meters (if you are lucky).
On the transmission side is not really a problem to connect the upper ones with the lower but I think you will be pretty dead anyway so … :-p.
APC have the same issue but they are faster but once you get 2 wheels down some concept … 🙂
I think a better solution than mine might be to allow the sprocket wheels to descend somehow to contact the ground in a track-damage emergency. Their high durability teeth would make use of existing engine power to drag the vehicle to cover. Probably better than trying to climb out and escape on foot.
Torque isn’t a problem, that’s what gearing is for. The problem is the size of the bogey wheels on the bottom. Small is good for torque but lousy on poor traction. Re-arrange at least one of the drive sprockets to be on the bottom. You end up with the old fashioned parallelogram design like the cartoons.
I like the idea of placing the drive sprocket(s) down amongst the ‘bogeys’…my guess is that the effects eg of mud on track engagement are no greater at that level than when raised at the front…it may even decrease their general vulnerability. Building in suspension to the drive sprocket shaft is a challenge, but some movement is necessary anyway, if it’s to contact the ground when tracks are destroyed.