New stuff for Weird Wars - (15/07/2019) Heer 46 E-100 Kickstarter live

[Wyrmalla]

The what now? Can't seem to find any reference to this. My Google-Fu is failing me here.

My German's crap. I meant the  Rutscher. The Germans saw the American Hellcat, a light tank with a powerful gun, and wanted to emulate it. They brought back a design from a few years prior and wanted to include it in their E-series (its commonly referred to as the E-5 incorrectly). It was a 3.5 ton tank with piss all armour equipped with twin PAW 600 guns (which fired HEAT rounds). A wooden mockup was made, and a parts list set out, but nothing came of it.

[Rich H]

 

[Wyrmalla]

Two legs on a walker? Unstable? Bah!



War Thunder's April Fools walker looked alright though.



Clockwork Goblin's original renders for their heavy walkers showed some more obvious nods to real WWII tank designs.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Oh and a walker needs 3 or more legs with decent ground pressure.  2 legs is unstable!

A walker with three legs is stable but also immobile, remember HG Well's description of the movement of a Martian Warmachine.

One of the irritating aspects of the Ghar figures.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

That Konigsmecha is much better than the 28mm ones that have been released by Warlord.

Not convinced by the rocket pods though, weapons suitable for suppressing infantry or light armour would appeal more.

[Ballardian]

 That tripod mech is likely to spend a lot of time face down in a ditch - it broadly looks like he's pinched the Mechatank 'Jagdroboter' design (Gas.Oline/Quarter-Kit) - they produced a line of 1/48 bipedal German mechs (they're not bad).
 I also agree that the original multi-legged design was better than the Thor/Zeus currently out.

 

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Ground pressure is the killer on the idea of mecha (I first saw it discussed in one of the R Talsorian Games Mekton books).

Bipedal walker's double the ground pressure issue (for an example of its effect, see one of the chapters of Niven and Barnes's Barsoom Project).

Lights and Medium could be bipedal, Heavies and above may need more legs, not just because of ground pressure but actually moving the legs.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

To quote the world famous expert on ambulatory mechanics, Laurie Anderson:
"You're walking. And you don't always realize it
But you're always falling
With each step, you fall forward slightly
And then catch yourself from falling
Over and over, you're falling
And then catching yourself from falling
And this is how you can be walking and falling
At the same time"

[Rich H]

Never liked the walker thing...

A spider mech might work... 

[FramFramson]

I've never understood the weird war fetish for walkers myself. Magic and Cthonian unknowables I can accept, but the basic physical impracticality of a bipedal, or even quadrupedal walker tank tweaks my nose.

On reflection, I probably wouldn't care at all (settings built entirely around such walkers, like Gundam for instance, don't bother me at all), except it seems like EVERYONE doing WWWI or WWWII wants to toss in walkers of some sort, and the saturation and lack of imagination is annoying. Do something else with weird war armour! Hovertanks or land dreadnoughts or anything else, really.

My German's crap. I meant the  Rutscher. The Germans saw the American Hellcat, a light tank with a powerful gun, and wanted to emulate it. They brought back a design from a few years prior and wanted to include it in their E-series (its commonly referred to as the E-5 incorrectly). It was a 3.5 ton tank with piss all armour equipped with twin PAW 600 guns (which fired HEAT rounds). A wooden mockup was made, and a parts list set out, but nothing came of it.

Neat!

[wminsing]

I think it's because walkers that look like a Sherman (or whatever) immediately screams WEIRD to people in ways that a Sherman with a hover-skirt doesn't.  But while I love walkers, I agree that it would be nice if someone took a different tact Weird War armored vehicles.   

-Will 

[wminsing]

But speaking of walkers:




New German 'Medium' walker from Clockwork Goblin.

-Will

[Wyrmalla]

Heh, the talk of walkers came from me posting those pictures on the previous page.

[wminsing]

Heh, the talk of walkers came from me posting those pictures on the previous page. Wink

Whoops!    That is what I get for only reading the last page in the thread! 

-Will

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Whoops!    That is what I get for only reading the last page in the thread! 

-Will

We all do it some time (I did not notice the 20mm scale reference on the BEF tow thread) ^__^.