Question for engineers who know WW1 tanks, or others who have advice

So far so good



* insert sound of Von Poop having an aneurysm here *

 

Haven't got a WW1 one, though, have you.
Have you?
...
Have you?

 

I saw the show where he helped rebuild the Spitfire; pretty cool dude.

 

There is a film that rotates around his 'giant fireball' TT crash: Closer To The Edge.

Highly recommended if you want a glimpse into his strange mind. Even my mum loved it.
(He also has as a chapter heading in one of his books: 'The Best sh*t I ever had'. Reads well, and does sound like a good one, complete with a view of the Alps.)

Errrm.
WW1 Tank tomfoolery...
An A7V would give plenty of space to mount active defence systems, invisibility screens etc.
Go Flakpanzer. Look at that real estate to place modern missile systems on.
Or a sundeck.
Maybe a pool.

 

It just hit me that this sounds very "Steam Punkish". Would be quite well accepted in those circles I believe. Reminds me:
Need to see if I can find that steam punk penguin art contest page again

 

Yeah i can see it not being financially worth it but it would still be great none the less. As for it being "Steam Punish" i would think it would fall more along the lines of Diesel Punk because it is world war time period and nothing says it absolutely has to have the engine of an Abrams but yeah i see what you mean.

 

WW1 is kind of the end of the "steam punk" era to my way of thinking but the concept of combining modern ideas and technology with the looks of that period is sort of how the "steam punk look" is defined to me. Of course I'm not into it like some people are. It's worth remembering that steam engines were a fairly common sight up until WW2. My father worked with a steam powered tractor and other such in the years before the war for instance ... they also used horses for some of the farm duties.

 

Well thanks for the video and it actually explains it rather well. I also see what you mean by the steam punk era thing but unlike you i am a big fan of steam punk and diesel punk. My dad runs a steam traction engine at a tractor fair near where i live and i will sometimes find myself just watching the piston and the machines working and i also love watching steam trains because it is just a big, deadly, highly explosive, play toy. Those four things pretty much some up a tank and i generally love tanks more. One thing that i really want to do is to eventually build or buy a tank and bring it to the fair just to let people see a new thing that is still as old as the traction engines. I also think i could make money off the tank by allowing museums to borrow it for events and stuff and then more people could see it while i would be making money off of it going around the world possibly

 

Not a tank but you can buy armored cars that are street legal for pretty reasonable prices. There's at least one individual on the forum that has a tank. You would either need one with rubber treads or have a flat bed to haul it on. They tend to be hard on the roads other wise. The hauler makes a lot of sense if you want to show it often or very far away. You could probably build the shell of a WWI era tank with a modern power plant and drive train for a reasonable price and it would operate pretty well.

 

von Poop, that Centurion looks like a WW1 tank on steroids! One mean looking creature.

As far as making a current MK 4 stand up to a modern MBT, good luck with that. Those wonderful flat sides, 10-12 inches of laminated armor might work. Or not ! No 120-125mm in a 360 turret so our modern MK 4 would have one on each side...ummm. Being that the crew compartment is one big box the crew would have to rather agile to avoid the recoil. and take turns in shooting! Modern suspensions are spectacular in practice, that of the MK 4 might be a tad "bumpy", given the speeds on modern MBTs..

Oh, the development cost, the Abrams, partially shared with the Germans and Brits, probably 2.000.000.000 +, that is with a "B", and far too low.....and the individual cost for a MBT roughly 4 to 7 million each. Perhaps Elon Musk could change his automobile plant to this endeavor as his latest efforts at car making frees up some room..Seen any Teslar 3's lately.

A fun thread , I had rather be in a MBT but like the big door in the side of the Mk 4 in the event, one might need egress!

Now if you bred a MK 4 with that weird Swedish tank of late , Stridsvagn 103, or “S-tank , where one aimed the main gun by aiming the tank you would have a leg up !~!

Gaines

 

S Tank meets the Mark iv, you say?
We're having difficulty nailing the low profile, but we are slowly pinning down the concept:

 

Well my original plan was to get a bulldozer if i was just planning on building a tank in general. I would use that and build the rest of it around it and of course i would use rubber tracks so i could drive it on the road, i would also add some cameras in certain locations with a screen in the cab with me so i could see outside the tank. The only problem with having a Mk V tank on modern roads is that if i made it using a bulldozer then i would most certainly not be able to get any real speed but i would have all the turning capability in the world. Also since i wouldn't want it actually going up against MBT's then i dont have to worry about functional guns with storage for ammo and i also dont have to worry about making the armor any more than half an inch just so it can survive hitting stuff. Suspension would be tricky especially with how the slant on the front goes so high and i also havent figured out where the drive axle on it is either so if anyone knows where that is that would be great. I assume its on the front bottom side of the frontal slant once it goes to level off again but i dont know and google doesn't do what i want it to.

 

There was a plan in WW2 to update the original tank. The original design team The Old Gang (TOG) came up with TOG b1


and TOG 2

Neither 80 ton behemoth was adopted.

If you plan to do that you end up with a tankj built on top of a caterpillar tractor. Go for a French



or German design.

 

Thats true i could do either of those but i could also if i had the materials to just lengthen the whole thing into the design that i want it. But that is true i could just go that simple route but i never really did like the german and french tanks of ww1

 

I would think it would be very costly as late armor and weapons are very expensive on their own, plus a mark V would have to heavily modified to be able to carry a modern tank gun like the Abrams. The sponson mounts were built to handle a 6pdr gun too small for a 105 or 120. It would be something to see though. You should get a 73 scale kit of the wwi tank and try building your dream tank add plasti sheet for extra armor or cubes for reactive armor enlarge the sponsons and mount a big gun the tracks would probably have to be wider for the extra weight I'd adapt the Churchill track and running gear or maybe the centurion or challenger track and gear. Maybe add a tow launcher on the roof over the diver station. In any case it should be an interesting vehicle. I've thought they were interesting tanks just needed a turret like some of the early French tanks. I was amazed that we bought I believe 4400, ft17 anyway the rights to build them we paid for the right to license build our own copies as we had no tanks of our own and bought a bunch of French guns which we still had in wwii.

 

If you go the tog route I'd go with a Churchill or black prince turret or maybe a centurion with a 120. At least it would be all British.