WELCOME 2019! some questions for the populace.

[~D]

hey guys,coming back to this group after some time,Im the one who wanted to build a maus,and was interested in special indirect fire rules for a t92. i decided to finally knuckle down and make something,hopefully to be finished within the next 3-5 years,and i have some questions for you all,mostly for the more veteran battlers but anyone can chime in.

1. What sort of activity does the group have:Any planned events,any fields willing to host,anyone with operational or near operational vehicles that would be willing to go to any events this year?

2. What sort of engagment ranges are most common,longest recorded hit and kill?

3. What are the rules regarding custem built markers,i plan on making my own that will be more accurate and smaller.something like a bench gun vs the now used gun-in-vice aproach?

4. What are the rules regarding the paintballs themselves? with making a custem marker i will be designing it to use balls with attached Scenario Dreams fin stabalizers(theyre biodegradable/reusable suposedly).

5. cast aluminum link&pin track vs tying track pros&cons? pros&cons of any other systems tried?

6. 2 motor chain/direct drive vs single diff brake steer vs dual diff steer pros&cons?

7. spring vs pneumatic vs torsion(single bar vs dual bar) vs horstmann vs rocker&bogie vs hydropnuematic pros&cons?

8. optimal horizontal traverse rate for turret,hull and combined?

9. optimal gun elevation(both positive and negative elevation)?

10. front vs rear vs front&rear drive sprocket pros&cons?

11. radio system pros&cons?

12. optimal forward/reverse speed?

13. max marker fps/ms/joules?

14. rubber track pads vs solid metal

15. usefulness of FPV,either fully or partial for the sole purpose of aiming?

16. possibility of ultra low velocity full auto airsoft gun for use as simulated flamethrower vs infantry/artillery?yes i want a crocodile :}

17. miniature smoke grenades/generators?

18. whats everyones FAVORITE prototype vehicle they wish they could build and fight with,no limits on choices other than no purely paper tanks?

19. any new projects in the works? any idea your looking for a chance to try?

20. anyone made or wanted to make a 2/5 scale ride in vehicle for paintball or airsoft? something like these?

optional 21. for Mike Mangus,the builder of #T081, what are your thoughts on your vehicle,its unique playstyle/mechanics,any shortcoming in the vehicle either by design or execution of the build,what is your playstyle/doctrine,peeves on the stop-to-aim nature of the strv 103 series,do you feel outclassed or superior to turreted vehicles in offensive,defensive,ambush and scouting roles? how do you handle needing to enter a cityscape,or do you avoid it entirely? would you have used a dual diff steering(would allow more acurate horizontal traverse) and/or functional hydropnuematic suspension if you were to do it over? would it be usefull adding a steering reversal control for driving in reverse as the real vehicle had a part time rearward driver/radio operator? would you find benifit in an fpv system with long range transmission system,allowing you to venture off and find a good hiding/ambush spot?

Thats all from me for a bit,ill check back in a day and see whos still an active tanker! :)

regards,

~D

[J-MaxRC]

WOW! That's a lot of questions man! I will say that this group tread is pretty dead for some time sadly... I wish we can put the conversations back on tracks..!!! à

So you are not decided on what you are building?! The T-92 Howitzer(??) and Maus are big beast and bresent a lot of chalenges(mostly the Maus!) 

I will go point by point to tell you my opignon on each if you don't mind, I only did one trip to Pensylvania but I got 2 ''battle proved tanks''(SU-76 and T-70) and a support tracked truck build(RSO). I'm also actively building an 2 other 1/6 scale tracked projects and a 1/9 scale T-60 tank with torsion bars and a lot of 3D printed parts in it for testing(and make it fly... Since it will be a A-40 Flying tank when I'm finish...!)

I want to point out that I all of my answers there will a couple of sides into it because it realy depends on your priority and your skill/tool avability!

1- I realy hope we get a battle organised this summer I realy loved my trip in 2016 and it would be nice to do it again!

2- Engament ranges are normaly close, like very close! You have to be lucky like hell to have a hit at 50 feet distance. You see paintball ammo are not accurate and they have the tendancy to balloon out of the theorical lign of shot when they fly below a certain velocity and you try to shoot down at a tank when you are a couple of feet behind your tank with-out direct sigth on your barrel, so it's freacking hard to be precise. Because of most of the engagement are within easely 15feets. Here is a video post By Caleb Smith from the Smith Clan that show a little what the engagement look like... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxcZu73xGuA

3-For the guns I don't what officialy what are the rules on home made gun but I can tell you this, It's ruffly impossible that you get to built a paintball gun more accurate than a real paintball gun that got more than 30years of engenering experiences behind there design... And for the accuracy putting a longer barrel won't make it more accurate on the contrary.... You try to shoot an heavy blob of vegetal oil down a tube and the gun is realy just a balance between velocity and the drag of the ammo itself in the air. I got in My SU-76 a cheap Spider Victor gun that once the handle cut take only 1''X2.25'' of space with a 16 inch barrel. First to make sure that the paint ball do not explode in the barrel there is holes releasing the presure on half of the length of the barrel and I made shooting test with one of my friend that is a semi-pro paintballer and the is no noticeable differences between a 12 inch or 16 inch barrel. Even my gun had more tendancy to clug up in the barrel than he's with ammo comming from the same bag... The paintbal feeding system is the thing that take the most space and that is the harder to make working good enougth..!

4-Few years ago the paintball industry came out with first strike ammo that seem to give amazing result give far more stability to the painball making all the difference in accuracy and range. the scenario dream ad-on seem to do the same job but remenber that you have to feed that in the gun will some king of clip or feed mecanism to carry the rounds from a magasin to the gun releably without destroying them. It's do-able but far to complexe and space consuming. It's already complexe enougth to make the feeding system work with only rounds balls so I do not recomend to try that at first  make your tank work with as less fancy stuff possible and learn from that experience and after you can always rebuilt the gun system to try to handle those kind of rounds if you want , and atleast you will have a fonctionning tank to play with in the meentime.

5-I now have some experience in casting since I'm now working in the engenering team of a automotive fondry and I'ts not worth the trouble... Don't know your background but there is a couple of good tutorial on the internet about casting aluminum so it's doable but in 1/6 scale you will need to make a couple 100s of track mold and cast taht machined the exces materiel you will get for sure and machined holes and track pins.. So a freaking lot of work, but if you got easy acces to a machine shop and the tools need to make the pattern plate and get all the needed material(aluminium, casting sand, a metal funace, etc). I don't think too that it would be good in combat you want to go fast and have fast reaction time from your tank to confront opponent, heavy metal track at that scale mind not be the best... TTS track on the other and are simple to built and are combat proven many times... You need to decide how you will built the pads themself (wood, metal or pastic casting like I do with Smoothcast 305) and glue/srew them togethere.

6-You can do the diffencial steering but it will be far less competitive than a 2 motors drive that you can do crazy donuts and response quick to any treat... It's also a lot more strong mechanically than a differencial that have a lot more part prone to not be strong enougth.... And if you do the Maus you have noe idea how hard it will be to turn with all the surface area of the track scrapping the ground..

7-You do what you want there but the simpler the better. Remember that if you focus on combat you need a bullet proof suspension as simple as possible. I personaly use the Feild of Armor Suspension on my SU-76 that work flawless and can be ajust as much as you want. On the T-70 there no suspension and it's ruff and don't look as good but is unbreakable. On the RSO I use simple tubing to make pivot buggy and look a lot better but is still ruff on the riding and finaly My small T-60 with it's torsion bar (one per road wheels) made from Piano Wires (use normaly to built rc plane landing gears) give the best ride so far but you need a good solid ajustement system and determine what angle you need the preload the torsion bar and determine what thickness wires you get for the weigth of the tank. Good exemples of torsion bar would be the T081 and SV015..!

8- As you feel fit, you just need to be confortable with it in combat or whatever you see fit. you will fing that if it's too fast it will be hard to control precisely.

9- 10 degrees up and as down your tank let you do it but as far as I know in real combat situation you don't need to go below zero that often anyway. the up 10 degres is for safety, in combat you shoot sometime at other tank and you it other tanker in the legs and it,s alrigth but more up than that you can hit some one in the familly sac and there is no fun in that.....!!!

10-That mostly depend on the tank you choose because there is many factors that pushed the designers where making there tanks but generaly it's for a tranmision placement(front or back) and the front drive sprocket have the tandancy to clean themself when going fowrd a speeds so nothing get stuck in the sprockeT, In theory...! Also when you get a rear sprocket, it pull directly on the track under the tank instead of pulling on the idler wheel and than the track on the ground making maybe less wear on the tension system. Out of that I don't realy see big difference when you put that in a scale model.

11-Go for anything you want as long as it fit your budget. I use Futuba Spectrum, but now my favorite radio is a Radiolink AT10II that are freacking cheap and do the job amazingly well with the possibility to get feeback from the tenk like the volage of the batery and much more. ( https://www.robotshop.com/ca/en/radiolink-at10ii-24g-12ch-transmittee-r12ds-receiver.html ) you can find more or less the same thing with other compagny but you will pay a couple of 100$ even more in certain case... So the only thing is you need a minimum of 5 channel for a fonctionning tank and all the other gadget you want to put will be other channels to control and more and more complex to operate in combat....!

12-As fast as the tank/track can handle. Be sure that if you built a Maus you won't go fast in the turn since it will to hard to slide sideways... For a t-92 it could go faster but again it's still a big beast so if you go too fast in the turns it will be easy to trow off a track...!

13-Officially I don,t know but for official painball battle it's generaly 300FPS max since more than that you bleed more often when hit..! I would go more than that..!

14-I use Smoothcast industrial plastic and for what I do strong enougth it does'nt wear to fast even doing crazy drift on asphalt. Plastic like that is ligth and easy to work and replace not  sure you can do the same with metal track/pad the other thing is that if you come to a friend party  with the tank and you completely destroy he's back yard showing off I'm not sure he will invite you back...!! So whatever you do metal or plastic you are realy not obliged to have agressive pattern on the pads, and youre tank will be far easier to maneuver in combat too! I need to try out rubber materiel available from Smooth cast to test there wear ability..!

15-A tank is normaly driven By a crew of 3(russianT-72 as ex.) to 5 or more beacause they all got a job to do looking trougth there sigth and everything. You can built a FPV set-up for the fun of it but I don't see any usefulness in it in combat. You got so much going on in the same time you need to be aware of what is going on arround and quick! Maybe if you had 3 peoples driving shooting and commanding the tank you could do somthing...!

16-If you are concern by the space the paintball take don't look at a airsoft gun since most of the manifacturer make the gearboxe qith the motor in the handle, and you can't realy move it so very hard to find a way to put it in, again doable but not realy necessary in combat just adding on the complexity of the tank. But for fun of it could be nice to see on a fonctionning tank and that is the hard part!!!

17-No real use again in combat I think since you drive the tank running arround you won't realy block the view and smoke generator for the exaust would cool to see just for a scale point,..!!

18-the A-40 flying tank and I'm building it rigth now but at a smaller scale the tank alone weigth  8.5 lbs full RC and will get a winng span of 70 inchs...!( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TSBBMRFgt4&t=1s )

19-I got 2 other new project in 1/6 scale but I prefer to wait a little before announcing them officially but on the C.T.D facebook page I did post some sneak peak of what I'm working on..! if you care to see there is a lot of tanker there too and is a little more active thanks to Robert Donald Currie!

C.T.D. CANADIAN TANK DIVISION aka. "NORTHERN BARBARIANS"

  

20- Sure do but my wife would probably kill me if she find out I did built a ride on toy tank take up most of space in the garage..!!! But never say never rigth??!

In conclusion you look like you have a lot of ideas to built something crazy!! It's nice but I'm pretty sure the reals veterans would say the same, your fisrt goal should be to built something simple and fonctionnal and after going bigger!!!! There so much more stuff that you need to think when building a tank and even when you think this will never breack or you think some parts will be good enougth, you can be sure that theses parts will explodes miserably in the saddest mather..!!! So don't be shy to ask more questions! We sure can try to help you out with your built comming from our experiences. 

The rest is your choice whatever you go competitive or coolness, it will be the main driver in your design..!

 

 

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Jean-Maxime Cyr St-Pierre

[~D]

my plan now is to make an strv103 series,i wanted to know the viability of a dual diff because the control method for aiming will be alot easier that way. i plan on trying to improve the first shot accuracy with it vs whats been done already,things like smoother gun movement with less deadzone/wiggle,lower dispersion and better ranging/aiming using a few tricks ive seen from other hobbies/fields of engineering. i was hoping to use the tying tracks im just wondering about how they handle high torsion turning,like how an strv irl if the cannon hits a tree as its traversing,it will pivot and drag the whole vehicle on the axis of the obstruction to keep the gun traversing. plan on using a large motor for the drive and a smaller brushless motor geared down for the traverse,larger range of traverse speed, higher torque and better accuracy. the hydropnuematic suspension system i plan on (unfortunatly) faking with a linear actuator and some heavy duty linkages connected to the mounting points for the internal springs. later on once like you said,i get a working vehicle bare bones, i plan on adding a targeting camera hooked up with an arduino and a laser range finder,to give me a ballistic computer like the m60a3.that is...if i can improve the shot grouping and effective range. i plan on making this my classic car of sorts. in the video games i play i tend to proffer long range extreme accuracy vs faster closer quarters as my reaction time is rather slow,hence the interest in the longest range recorded hit. the minimum size for tanks as i saw it on the rules here is 3 feet so i plan on having atleast an aftermarket extended barrel bringing it in scale with the real vehicle,i want to challenge myself with cramming all i want into such a small package. i plan on trying both fin stabilization and hopup like airsoft use.while the hopup would make it able to use unprepared ammunition it risks fouling the round. i plan on this taking maybe 2 years to get bare bones operational and total of 5 to get it all working as i want,though as any classic car owner knows...its never finished. 

the A-40 is amazing X) have you seen the OBJ 740,OBJ 279? the soviets had some awesome prototypes. has anyone thought of making an amphibious tank and taking it to a field with say,a base on either side of a large pond,with chokepoints on either side. something id love to look into later. also possibly making a turreted vehicle with gun stabilization,as its not that hard to add if the deadzone/wiggle is removed from the turrets traverses.actually...i may put that on the maus when i make that some time down the road...would allow firing on the move with a better than 0% chance of hitting :)

[J-MaxRC]

Good choice!! 

Maybe you underestimate the effeciency of brush Esc now a day, because yes it can be crazy and unstable with 2 drive motors but if somebody would want to do prescise shooting, you sure can ajust the sensivity of your remote with a lot of exponential in the programe of the transmiter. I don't know if you know about that feature?

It make the smaller movement of the stick smooth and delicate and if you go pass the middle range it exponantially go more sensitive so you can be precise and super fast in the same time...??

But if you want to go dual diff go hahead I would realy love to see a macanical wounder like that work!! It's just that I love the simplicity of the twin motors!!

Good luck with the paintball it sure will be easier to built a feeding system in an STrv since the gun is fix!

Just remember that whatever tigth your aiming system is, paintball gun is not World of Tank, I realy doubt you will get that much more from paintball ammo(exept the fins maybe or first strike ammo) since if it would work it would be already in the market...!!!

But never say never rigth!!

Good lick and keep us posted!

On Sat., Mar. 30, 2019, 7:12 p.m. ~D <damien...@hotmail.com> wrote:

my plan now is to make an strv103 series,i wanted to know the viability of a dual diff because the control method for aiming will be alot easier that way. i plan on trying to improve the first shot accuracy with it vs whats been done already,things like smoother gun movement with less deadzone/wiggle,lower dispersion and better ranging/aiming using a few tricks ive seen from other hobbies/fields of engineering. i was hoping to use the tying tracks im just wondering about how they handle high torsion turning,like how an strv irl if the cannon hits a tree as its traversing,it will pivot and drag the whole vehicle on the axis of the obstruction to keep the gun traversing. plan on using a large motor for the drive and a smaller brushless motor geared down for the traverse,larger range of traverse speed, higher torque and better accuracy. the hydropnuematic suspension system i plan on (unfortunatly) faking with a linear actuator and some heavy duty linkages connected to the mounting points for the internal springs. later on once like you said,i get a working vehicle bare bones, i plan on adding a targeting camera hooked up with an arduino and a laser range finder,to give me a ballistic computer like the m60a3.that is...if i can improve the shot grouping and effective range. i plan on making this my classic car of sorts. in the video games i play i tend to proffer long range extreme accuracy vs faster closer quarters as my reaction time is rather slow,hence the interest in the longest range recorded hit. the minimum size for tanks as i saw it on the rules here is 3 feet so i plan on having atleast an aftermarket extended barrel bringing it in scale with the real vehicle,i want to challenge myself with cramming all i want into such a small package. i plan on trying both fin stabilization and hopup like airsoft use.while the hopup would make it able to use unprepared ammunition it risks fouling the round. i plan on this taking maybe 2 years to get bare bones operational and total of 5 to get it all working as i want,though as any classic car owner knows...its never finished. 

the A-40 is amazing X) have you seen the OBJ 740,OBJ 279? the soviets had some awesome prototypes. has anyone thought of making an amphibious tank and taking it to a field with say,a base on either side of a large pond,with chokepoints on either side. something id love to look into later. also possibly making a turreted vehicle with gun stabilization,as its not that hard to add if the deadzone/wiggle is removed from the turrets traverses.actually...i may put that on the maus when i make that some time down the road...would allow firing on the move with a better than 0% chance of hitting :)

--

[~D]

also,i was hoping to make a marker from scratch to do a few main things: make the breach block directly mount to the vehicle in a more sturdy way,to make the system handle more co2 tanks(more tankes>more volume under pressure>less drop in pressure as a result of firing>more consistent groups and more rounds down range before needing to top off the propellant bottles),make the breach block and autoloader mate more effectively togather(if i find the fin stabilization to outdo the hopup/backspin system in regards to accuracy and range) to increase the propellant used per shot to make a longer barrel actually increase velocity AND accuracy into a more acceptable range. also at the end of the day,id feel better knowing i built just that bit more of her with my own hands

[~D]

ya i plan on having actually pretty low rates on my exponents,atleast for the traverse and elevation,the throttle will probably have high rates as if im not creeping along slow and stealthy,i want to be flying at top or near top speed. i come from rc aircraft so im aware of some of whats out there. i could use a mixer for the dual motor system but im thinking this: if both drive motors are at max and you want to turn,one has to slow down,decreasing your speed. on the other hand with dual diff,if your drive motor is maxed out and you want to turn,the traverse motor spins the differential,slightly slowing one trace but speeding the other up to compensate,resulting in less speed loss if not none lost,also depending on the sensativity of the esc's and the mixer,it may also make the turn smoother. this means a few things,the drive motor can be bigger and the traverse smaller than the moors in the dual motor setup,also it MAY be more efficient in some situations,only spinning up a singl small motor to turn to aim,vs both  medium motors. on the other hand...it means that in a full spring the large drive motor may take more power to run and drain the batteries faster than the 2 mediums. ill have to look into that. this also means that the forward top speed can be increased per volume as a single large motor the same volume as both smalls MAY end up making more HP and resulting in higher top speed if you gear the large to match the hp/tonn(lol) of the medium motor arangment. this ofc isnt taking into account the transmission itself,the larger esc needed and the more robust mounting/linkages the larger motor will need.

. 

[J-MaxRC]

Hehe!! I think you over think it a little about the motors!!!??? Your points are rigth but in combat it's a bit hard to think how you can control both setup of motors..? So you got the gimbal for driving and you flip a switch to get in seige mod?!! Everything is programable!! But I like to keep it simple as less feature possible so that in combat all come to reflexe...(just like in a game!)

Why not use an HPA air tank?? It's far better than CO2 with a far more stable pressure since it got 3000psi base pressure...!!!

Anyway, you enjoy the hobby the way you want!!! If you twin diff mechanical autoloader I don't think we can help you there!!! Hehe!!

I'm bias to keep thing as simple as possible and I'm freaking cheap so don't mind me!!!

On Sat., Mar. 30, 2019, 7:51 p.m. ~D <damien...@hotmail.com> wrote:

ya i plan on having actually pretty low rates on my exponents,atleast for the traverse and elevation,the throttle will probably have high rates as if im not creeping along slow and stealthy,i want to be flying at top or near top speed. i come from rc aircraft so im aware of some of whats out there. i could use a mixer for the dual motor system but im thinking this: if both drive motors are at max and you want to turn,one has to slow down,decreasing your speed. on the other hand with dual diff,if your drive motor is maxed out and you want to turn,the traverse motor spins the differential,slightly slowing one trace but speeding the other up to compensate,resulting in less speed loss if not none lost,also depending on the sensativity of the esc's and the mixer,it may also make the turn smoother. this means a few things,the drive motor can be bigger and the traverse smaller than the moors in the dual motor setup,also it MAY be more efficient in some situations,only spinning up a singl small motor to turn to aim,vs both  medium motors. on the other hand...it means that in a full spring the large drive motor may take more power to run and drain the batteries faster than the 2 mediums. ill have to look into that. this also means that the forward top speed can be increased per volume as a single large motor the same volume as both smalls MAY end up making more HP and resulting in higher top speed if you gear the large to match the hp/tonn(lol) of the medium motor arangment. this ofc isnt taking into account the transmission itself,the larger esc needed and the more robust mounting/linkages the larger motor will need.

. 

--

[~D]

i looked at your builds,i think theyre well done.not as many bells and whistles as id like but very...russian in philosophy. make it work so simply,that the least reliable part of it is more reliable than the most reliable part of your enemies. like an AK or a t-54

[~D]

and yes,i overthink everything :) id rather overthink than underthink when it comes to building.

[~D]

thinking about it and having watched some videos on your youtube channel aswell as some others,i may be able to make the gearbox out of 3d printed NylonX,rather than cast and machined aluminum/steel

[~D]

if you design the mechanism with the materials properties in miind,you can make things like this.

[~D]

Hey just double checking with anyone that would know,theres no vehicle speed or shot fps limit as of yet right? At the end of this summer ill be buying a 3d printer,i plan on using the same model motor for the drive as my traxxas brushless e-revo,pushed through a planetary transmission like an allison(though without reverse or nuetral ofc) and im hoping to get top gear to be atleast 1:1 or close to it. It will probably only be a 3 speed for simplicity of shifting. Im hoping to tune the marker system to use up a full hpa tank after a whole number of paint refills to make it easier on myself...that combined with the planned 2.5ft~barrel will hopefully buff up my fps while not subjecting the paint to more g loading than it can handle. About how many shots do you guys get out of your tanks? Tanks as in air not as in...you get the idea. Also whats everyones opinion on combat engineer tanks/AVRE and using thier plows in say,a sand pit.the vehicle im looking to make has a plow and im thinking of making it usable as i seem to have the internal room for the piston. Also whats everyones experiance as far as ridged vs smooth track pads. Think snowcat vs bulldozer.anyone ever try the classic tank obstacle course and see thier results?(forward and back hill climb angle,side slope tolerance,trench crossing,slaloms,firing on the move,weight pull,clocking the turret and hull traverse speeds,top speed,0-10 then 10-0 kph,ground clearance,ledge climb height,rate of fire,shot fps,shot fps loss per 10 shots,fording depth,swimming speed,battery runtime during a predetermined course,avg reload/refuel time from 10 atempts,time to reseat thrown track based on same avg,max gun arc both horizontal and vertical,ground pressure,min intact suspension arms to support fully laden vehicle,weight both laden and dry,external dimensions l/w/h,etc.)

[Loren]

Shot speed is same as paintball, 300 fps or so IIRC. This is a safety thing.

No real tank speed limit that I can think of, but make sure it's controllable, and higher speeds give more trouble with looking tracks.