Recon Tank Anyone?

[pismox]

Looking at adzling's topic thread about his tank destroyer and light tank, it struck me that the light tank was a not so light wolf in sheeps clothing, with the extreme angling armor massively increasing it's survivability, and at the same time mounting the 120mm cannon that gives it the killing power of the Thor MBT.

I was wondering if anyone would be interested in making a true light tank, one similar to the M551 Sheridan that was deployed by airborne forces in Desert Storm? It could have Hermes Armor, but be fitted with a lighter gun or perhaps even the barrel-launched AT rockets that the Sheridan could be outfitted with.

I think such a vehicle would fill the niche that is currently open because of the weaknesses of the Paladins. They are too light to be used as a light tank, and the Hermes is too slow to effectively combat them.

A good recon tank would be able to move and maneuver quickly enough to avoid being hit by larger armored vehicles, and pack sufficient firepower to destroy or disable similar or lighter ones (read this as the 76mm or AT rockets)

Also, this vehicle could be made into an APC, by a reduction in firepower but the addition of a passenger area.

I guess I'm asking for a cross between the Sheridan and a M2 Bradley. And please, no wheels. The wheels on the Paladin are it's weakest point, destroying one makes driving difficult, two makes it useless for maneuver.

PS: adzling, I will definitely deploy your baby as soon as it's ready. I think it is a masterful piece of engineering. But if you make it fast as well as strong, that's almost unfair. Just my opinion. It doesn't mean I wouldn't use it if it's fast too

[Dark_au]

if it were to be a light tank recon then maybe base it on the Wiesel

[konstantine]

A tracked vehicle, the same size or smaller as the Shrike, just as or nearly as fast, mounting a 20mm or 76mm? That would be fun.

[adzling]

actually the Mjolnir is more of a medium tank or as yurch puts it "light mbt".

we'll work on making sure it's balanced

the armor will be somewhere between the apollo and the thor (although it's sloping will help in a level field) and i am expecting the speed to be somewhere between them.

the "Nemesis" t.d./sp.g. is built off the same chassis and will have simiilar armor thickness and speed to the Mjolnir although the way the armor is sloped should have better survivability facing it's target.

The gun traverse is limited but one of the + side of having no turret is that the gun can depress to -45 which should enable some indirect fire with the HE shells.

considering the apollo is considered a light tank in dropteam the slot seems to be filled already ;-P

an IFV wouldn't be the same role as the current paladins just with tracks i guess.

that wiesel is cute....can they fit infantry in there?

[aittam]

a 76mm Shrike with spotter functions if they'll become avaiable ever

[pismox]

I know that the Apollo is a light tank, and the paladin is an IFV, but the purpose of this thread would be to discuss whether it would be possible to combine the two into a Recon/APC tracked vehicle. This niche is missing. The sort of vehicles that I am suggesting would be the kind deployed by airborne units who would sacrifice a little firepower and armor for the ability to move quickly and deposit troops far forward, covered by both MBT's and artillery from long range. This vehicle would need to be able to defend itself (hence the suggestion of a 76mm gun) aptly while ranging so far ahead though, and would need to be more durable in combat than the paladin.

The Wiesel is a great model to start from, maybe make it longer to accomodate the infantry compartment...?

Just an idea

[Dark_au]

76mm, Light, Air-deployable, Recon tank... sounds like a Scorpion

[pismox]

I like the look of that scorpion, a little more substantial than the Wiesel, but still small enough to be nimble. If someone were to model a tank based on it, perhaps they would angle the "bumper" armor more so it isn't a vertical bullet-trap, and put a reverse angle on the sides to deflect AP rounds away from the turret and into the ground.

Then maybe the same reverse angle could be used on the rear of an APC variant to improve survivability (taking into consideration the large flat target that an infantry exit door makes)

I think that one major question still needs to be answered though. In the original post I mentioned a barrel launched anti-tank rocket. Is this possible within the current parameters of the game? Or would it have to be mounted in a separate launcher ala Bradley Linebacker variants?

Or how about having a larger caliber (152mm?), lower velocity cannon (utilizing HEAT rounds or discarding-sabot high density AP rounds). This could be the large caliber option for a force recon variant, rather than the 76mm gun used on the scout/APC variants? Can anyone build a new gun like this?

-In case you can't tell, I like the setup of the M551 very much, and think it has great potential.

[aittam]

i'm afraid tracks aren't the best option for recon in DT unless in mountains map

[Dark_au]

Just a note on shot-traps. This was a thing of WW2 and the early 50's. Since the invention of the DS round shot traps no longer apply. A deflected round is designed to shear. If it tumbles at all it can not penetrate. This is why the penetrator is fin stabilised. Shot-traps applied in the days when the AP round was a rifled slug which could be deflected down into the soft top. It also only applied to single layer armour, a composite laminate would just ignore a deflected rifled slug... Even the mighty 88mm. A penetrator today is designed to shear so that the remaining part of the penetrator has a sharp end to puncture where the round first hit. It will keep doing this until it no longer has the energy to shear. I would think that the DT rounds are like this though i cannot be sure.

[Bonxa]

My dream for a recon vehicle/raider would be a Shrike with a ~105 mm recoilless gun shooting HEAT rounds only. Perhaps a light COAX MG with limited ammo to give it self-defese capability against infantry. It's sole defense is extreme mobility and speed while retaining capability to kill even the heaviest AFVs with sideshots. Should excel at Top Hat Low Ski drills.

Now, how do you switch weapons on a model? A first step would be to smack the 120 mm gun on the shrike while removing the AP ammo.

[adzling]

hehe ok here's a tracked IFV based on the paladin chassis with a 120mm gun

now that's a little silly.....i'm sure it would get knocked over if it fired that gun to the side

that's a little better ;-0

while i'm waiting on the development team for formz to write some custom scripting for me i'm going to keep playing with these models...

(formz's support is stellar, when i described the troubles I was having doing uv unwrapping with their app they decided to do some scripting to merge their very robust "unfold" tool with their uv mapping tool....now that is tech support for ya!...course the software is a few thousand dollars so they bloody better be nice

[adzling]

ooh lookey lookey, it's a 6 wheeled IFV.

People seem to have been clamoring for a six wheeled version of the paladin chassis so here it is.

Smaller wheels allow it to get closer to the ground.

Top speed should be less than the 4 wheeled variant of course but survivability should improve somewhat.

+ it should be easier to to texture than the custom models i'm working on so if someone feels like they might want to cut up the existing .png texture file for the paladin and do the rest of the work to bring this model in-game i'm happy to pass this one off....

[adzling]

and how about a heavy IFV?

based on the nemesis/mjolnir medium tank chassis it incorporates a 120mm and room for a squad of inf.

To maintain play balance i would think:

1). less armor than the mjolnir or nemesis, more like paladin armor

2). turret only traverse 180 degress (or 270?)

3). reduced ammo load out of 10ap/10 heat

4). speed between the apollo and thor (same as mjolnir)

5). crappy apollo optics...

ok i gotta stop this modelling now...

[pismox]

these are the times I wish I knew how to model anything at all in 3d. Great work in a tiny amount of time adzling!

I was wondering if you could reverse the slope on the underside of the Paladin's driver compartment, and tuck the treads up into the side wells, as opposed to under the body as the first couple of models seem to be? Then smooth the front and top out, make the sides a continuous slope instead of a two-facet job, and perhaps recess the turret a touch, and we have nearly what I was talking about...amazing how the models helped me see what it could look like.

And the heavy IFV is nice, how about a 76 mm option? I love what you've done.

For the technical question, will someone please answer me about barrel fired rockets? Thanks

[ClaytoniousRex]

ok i gotta stop this modelling now...

Oh, please don't Adz.

[Redcon-5]

Ok I just had to chime in. I've never done any 3D modeling but I just had to try and Sketch-up was easy so here is my idea for a recon AFV. 120mm with 10AP and 10 HEAT, and Two ATGM Coax, (can you have more then one coax weapon if so then a 6mm Ion for inf defence, no ammo needed)

I have a pic of the model so far but I dont know how to post it, help please.

[pismox]

Here's my idea for a AFV based on a combination of the Paladin and the M2 Bradley:

[ August 23, 2006, 08:34 PM: Message edited by: pismox ]

[pismox]

Redcon I think that your vehicle description doesn't quite fit with a recon-oriented design. The 120 MM is only good if someone can find a way to lower the muzzle velocity, giving it excellent killing power at close range with a single shot (M551 inspiration again) without knocking the vehicle over with the recoil. A smaller caliber, faster firing weapon is probably going to be more effective though as the big gun will cost the vehicle some maneuverability and speed. Also where the heck would you mount 2 AGTM's on a small recon vehicle?

But if you have this design figured out and sketched then e-mail it to me a pismox2@mac.com, and I'll post it for you.