Competition: Tank Design 2239

[Sturgeon]

Current curb weight estimate is about 41 tonnes. Not bad for a tank with almost 250mm LOS frontal armor!

 

 

Cheek armor is about 5.5 inches swept back at 60 degrees. Side armor is 3 inches canted in at 30 degrees.

 

 

The glacis is lightly elliptical. Doesn't need to be, but I really wanted to challenge myself to do an elliptical hull on this one, so it's there.

 

And before anyone says my turret's not balanced!

 

 

[Sturgeon]

My first attempt at a cupola looks pretty... Interesting.

 

[N-L-M]

3 hours ago, Sturgeon said:

 

 

Looks like some unholy combo of a Merkava and a Chieftain, I like it.

Also I should get cracking.

[Lord_James]

31 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

My first attempt at a cupola looks pretty... Interesting.

 

 

Chanelling your inner 1930s France, I see  

 

Also, I think I’ll throw my hat into the ring. Just need to get a CAD program 

[Sturgeon]

The machine gun makes it look a little more convincing:

 

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[Sturgeon]

Haven't added the coax yet. You may also notice the tracks are missing.

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[Sturgeon]

7 minutes ago, Willy Brandt said:

What kind of suspension?

 

Probably Horstmann.

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[Sturgeon]

2 minutes ago, Willy Brandt said:

Why no Torsion bar? Horstmann for better Stabilisation?

 

Mostly because I like Horstmann and it's different.

[Sturgeon]

Starting to look like something:

 

 

Tumor-cupola is an unfortunate necessity due to the tank's design, I think. However, even with that, it's still ~0.3m shorter than an M60. So, low profile even with its fancy hat.

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[Sturgeon]

4 minutes ago, Willy Brandt said:

Why that big cupola? Why not just a small one or multiple small ones with MG mountings?

 

The cupola's not really that big, the tank is just... Squished. It's not that tall to begin with and the commander's gotta go somewhere. Now, that being said, I did some very rough guesstimating with some pictures of an M103, and I think I might be able to save five or six inches, but that's all!

[Sturgeon]

Like... That's it. That's all the commander's got. A little over four feet.

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[Sturgeon]

3 minutes ago, Willy Brandt said:

What about the ergonomics of the commander it looks like he is directly behind the gun. Can the shells eject and not hit the commander?
What about reloading the gun?
Where is the ammo if the commander is directly behind the gun?
Also what is the diameter of your Tank shell?

Cant you take the 240 buttstock off?

 

Calm down, sparky.

1. He is directly behind the gun, but the intended weapon is an M240 with spade grips, not the actual model shown there. It's just a placeholder (and frankly, a pretty shit model anyway).

2. Yes, he can reload the gun. That is part of why the cupola... Looks that way.
3. It's not feeding from a side box. Ammo feeding would have to be done differently. But it's always thus in these kinds of cupolas.

4. Diameter of the shell, or the round, or?

[Sturgeon]

I don't really think there's a way to make really cool cupolas tbh.

[N-L-M]

Finally, I too can post some progress!
Using Creo 3 (I need to learn it anyway), I have finally been able to assemble the barest form of hull. The extensions for the turret ring took forever and a half.

The hull is mostly welded rolled plates, with a few cast details. Currently the only cast detail is the "ears", but when I can the suspension mountings and some of the sponson auxiliaries will be cast.
The current form is extremely rough and will be refined, but at least it's *something*.
Current mass for just the hull is 15 tons, have to cut that way down later.

[Sturgeon]

73 rounds fit in the turret bustle behind a firewall:

 

[Sturgeon]

I think that's as good as my cupola is gonna get:

 

[N-L-M]

55 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

73 rounds fit in the turret bustle behind a firewall:

 

That doesn't look particularly accessible, what racking provisions are there?

In other news, for those who don't model cartridges every day, I now have a dummy shape of my intended cartridge:

[Sturgeon]

5 minutes ago, N-L-M said:

That doesn't look particularly accessible, what racking provisions are there?

 

I don't have a rack yet, I was just looking at max packing density. Realistic load is probably more like 60 or so. Still great.

Went to my standby tan:

 

[N-L-M]

That's significantly higher ammo capacity then what I'm currently expecting, very nice indeed.
@LostCosmonaut, are there any ammo capacity requirements? Or requirements for performance vs. soft targets?

[LostCosmonaut]

39 minutes ago, N-L-M said:

That's significantly higher ammo capacity then what I'm currently expecting, very nice indeed.
@LostCosmonaut, are there any ammo capacity requirements? Or requirements for performance vs. soft targets?

 

I didn't have anything specific in mind for ammo requirements, I'll leave that up to the judges determination as long as you have a reasonable number (i.e. 10 rounds for the main obviously wouldn't be acceptable, but 30 might be depending on what it is and what kind of secondary armament you have and such).

 

Any of the tanks you design should be capable of engaging hard and soft targets.