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[Aseaheru]

Still, it shows that we can give the design some BIG guns.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

UR, I think he is basing it pretty much off this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SdKfz_251

Problem is that vehicle has 6-14.5mm armor (IIRC only forward is 14,5mm rest is 6mm),  and has one machinegun without additional armor to protect the gunner.

Yep there are variants with heavy guns, but they are forward facing, not turrets, so much more compact

Patrick's vehicle weights like 30 tons (that's without a heavy gun) , that's 5  light tanks and in the same weight category as medium tanks, why not make tanks instead?
Or 5-10 towed guns and tractors for them?

[Patrick Hunt]

I've been editing mine as I go but been side tracked a bit.

Mine is a lot lighter then it was before, the side guns are entirely optional I just want the mounts because I'm some situations they'll be useful but I'm gonna scrap them because I can't be bothered to argue.

We need mobile AA and mobile artillery, tanks do not have the range or anti air power to do the job and pieces that are fixed have the inherent weakness of the enemy just going around. Mobile is required.

[evilcherry]

Frankly I don't see mixing a SPG(Self-propelled gun) and AA gun design. A SPG only need elevation; they can (and should) transverse by turning itself so more weight to the gun. The AA gun would need a very capable (and thus heavy) transverse, but mobility is of second importance.

Unless you are trying to make another Flak 8.8, but it is a monster gun in itself.

[Patrick Hunt]

I'm not mixing anything, I'm making an armored truck. It can and was done for real to load artillery onto one and use it in battle so no reason we can't do it.

[10ebbor10]

Oh yeah, one thing I have to ask, is that MG having it's ammunition stated at 8x20mm a typo?

It isn't. Someone wanted to design munition using an existing rifle round.

8x54mm bullet
Strong Rifle Cartridge
Bullet: 8x20mm lead
Cartridge:12x54mm

Also, 9cm of armour is nothing. The famous German "Maus 2" prototype has 24cm of armour, and weighed nearly 200 tonnes. Weight is Not. A. Problem. At least, with tanks.

It never fought, the engine took up 2/3 of it's frame, it's 2 decades ahead and even wit those massive engines it couldn't move faster than a crawl. Also, it couldn't cross bridges and is one of the only things that could manage to sink on land.

Heh, I like a 1924 year halftrack idea with armor thicker than early WW2 medium tanks had. Almost tempted to vote to get analogue of that propelled gun from the Nadaka's game

Funk
Well 15mm is bassically an anti tank machinegun, what surprizes me that 10ebbor10 made it so light. It should have been like 50-80kg, because it's borderline light autocannon

Tell me If I do something stupid. No sense of scale, I have.

[3_14159]

To everyone saying his ideas for a mobile indirect artillery gun are impractical/impossible. The Birch Self Propelled Gun. 360-degree turret with an artillery howitzer attached. first SPG ever - reasonably fast, open-air, highly mobile.

And it was mounted on a tank chassis. Do not get me wrong - self-propelled artillery, while costly, is important and not at all impractical.
Of course, if you mount an artillery gun on it, you're going to be quite far away from the front - your dangers are aircraft, shell fragments from bombardment and an enemy breakthrough. Against the latter, you can fly. Against the rest... a bit of armour protects you fairly reasonable, more won't save you.

Also, 9cm of armour is nothing. The famous German "Maus 2" prototype has 24cm of armour, and weighed nearly 200 tonnes. Weight is Not. A. Problem. At least, with tanks.

What ebbor said.
Basically, the heavier your tank is, the slower it is, the less usable it is (no bridges?) and the easier to take out by air power. Look at the Maus:
That thing mounted a U-boat engine and still wasn't faster than 13km/h. You need to refuel every 60 km offroad. Hell, I can most definitely see such a monstrum crawl towards allied soldiers, them hiding behind cover and calling for air support.
Look at the Tiger I, for example. It needed special transport tracks to be transportable by rail. That's not efficient.
Basically, Weight. Is. The. Main. Problem. At least, with tanks. At some point, it just becomes a giant target crawling through the mud - or just a slow-moving fort.

[Aseaheru]

Mud, yes, that is the thing. Many of the bigger tanks the germans came up with failed in fighting because they sank into the mud, makeing the giant ass guns and multi foot thick armor useless.

[3_14159]

Mud, too. Basically, the problem is that you need to minimize the weight per area of your tracks. That, however, grows the bigger a tank gets - doubling each of its dimensions results in eight times the weight and only four times the area. (See cube/square law).

10kg of what? We have almost no idea how to do rocket, how about we o rockets next year with trained monkeys and some idea how to engine.

Oh, that's actually mostly my plan. We need some kind of test rocket before that, however, which is what I wanted to do this turn. Basically, do a 100kg test rocket with a few kilometres of range now, and then develop the real deal.

[Aseaheru]

But we have no idea how to get the engine. That is the main thing we need first, and if it is anything like IRL it is what will take the most time. Once you have engiens and know how to get fuel for them it is mostly just a case of snap together some semi-standard things with the insanely hard to develop engines.

So, I would go with your idea, but no engines exist (for us) yet. Once we get engines it is basically just math to get the rest.

[10ebbor10]

Most artillery rockets are little more than a fuel packed tube*. After all, you're still dealing with solid fuel rockets here. The first recorded flight of a liquid fueled rocket didn't occur till 1926.

*Brilliantly engineered tubes that is, but still. (And those things have to be designed on a case to case)

[kahn1234]

the only way to stop a tank sinking into the mud is to give it wider tracks or make it lighter either by reducing the amount of crap you are putting on it or by developing lighter materials.

For example, modern tanks weight 50-60 tonnes. Many are lighter, at 40 tonnes or less. Yet the armour is several times 'thicker'.

For example, the most heavily armoured tank in the world, the Challenger 2, with the uparmour kit (dorchester armour-filled modules on the front half of the hull and all around the already very heavily armoured turret) has the equivalent of 1500-1700mm worth of steel armour on the turret, with the equivalent of 1300+mm worth on the front half of the hull. The only weak point of the tank is the engine block.....

if we want tough but heavily armoured and armed tanks, we design composite armour and lighter (but stronger) alloys to use in engines and armaments.

[Aseaheru]

Ah, The range is for liquid fueled ones. Dont ask me about the tubes of powder.

[evilcherry]

the only way to stop a tank sinking into the mud is to give it wider tracks or make it lighter either by reducing the amount of crap you are putting on it or by developing lighter materials.

For example, modern tanks weight 50-60 tonnes. Many are lighter, at 40 tonnes or less. Yet the armour is several times 'thicker'.

For example, the most heavily armoured tank in the world, the Challenger 2, with the uparmour kit (dorchester armour-filled modules on the front half of the hull and all around the already very heavily armoured turret) has the equivalent of 1500-1700mm worth of steel armour on the turret, with the equivalent of 1300+mm worth on the front half of the hull. The only weak point of the tank is the engine block.....

if we want tough but heavily armoured and armed tanks, we design composite armour and lighter (but stronger) alloys to use in engines and armaments.

I don't really see the point there. Unless we go on the offensive we can just rely on the mountainous terrain as half of the defense. Mobility is needed, yes, but I think some kind of static defenses would work better.

[Patrick Hunt]

Static has issues.

You can't cover everything with a static defense piece and something moving fast can rush past it.
You need a healthy mix of static and mobile to provide full cover which is why I made my truck.

It can mount light artillery and AA on the back to provide mobile support to reinforce the static line or to be moved into weak spots to block them.