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Post by squirmydad on Dec 3, 2021 18:47:43 GMT -9
An old project from about four years ago that I should be able to finish this month. I fixed the geometry quirks in this, going back over the texturing of the armor plates as I found them artistically disagreeable;My hold up last time was texturing the armor plating and it wasn't lining up the way I wanted so I'm redoing just that part of the project.
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Post by squirmydad on Dec 3, 2021 19:41:54 GMT -9
Armor revised-
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Post by squirmydad on Dec 4, 2021 17:30:01 GMT -9
First real build, need to rework a few tabs, tidy up some textures, almost done. My original idea was that space colonies in conflict would need to up-gun or do a military conversion to an existing vehicle. The lower treads and hull are from an Ebbled "Onager" model, the gun and mount are from the Ebbles "Kirschner-MBT" model, the upper hull was designed by me and then I imported textures from the Onager model and tweaked them. the armor plates are intended to represent reactive ablative plating, since the colonists probably wouldn't have the facilities to make heavy composite armor.
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Post by squirmydad on Dec 5, 2021 15:46:34 GMT -9
Some minor tweaks and I think I'm done. I will make some color variants for more festive looking AFV variants.
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Post by squirmydad on Dec 9, 2021 7:29:14 GMT -9
Around the same time (years ago) that I was trying to make the Hetzager I also had the idea of making a Wirbelwind variant. I liked the look of the chunky AA turret slapped onto a panzer hull, but the 3d geometry of the turret was giving me fits for some reason. Since I finished the Hetzager I reopened the Wirbelwind project and fixed the turret geometry. Then it occurred to me that I couldn't just attach that to the Onager tread units so I took a look at Soviet APCs for inspiration and made a hull to fit on top of the treads and hold the AA turret.
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Post by squirmydad on Dec 9, 2021 8:09:40 GMT -9
And the layouts for both mods, I'll see about test-building them today.
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Post by squirmydad on Dec 9, 2021 19:36:48 GMT -9
Test-build passed, texturing tomorrow. Definitely a right way and a more challenging way to assembling the wirbelwind turret.
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Post by alexio on Dec 10, 2021 16:04:31 GMT -9
A couple of design questions for you:
1) Why the pointy nose? there's essentially no side protection for the treads, and a boxy turret sticking up on top, and it is a Wirbelwind, a Calliope, its targets are in the sky more than on the ground, so this vehicle isn't a stealthy hunter like the Hetzager. So why the thin pointed nose instead of a more capacious storage for ammo and/or operators? Not as boxy as the M-113 with a turret that is the M-163 Vulcan, but boxier... particularly if this is an expeditionary or colonial vehicle, operating away from a supply chain.
2) Why does the turret sit on top of the hull? Going back to the argument for more space, why not raise the deck height around an inset turret (you could slope the deck down toward the sides if you wanted grazing surfaces) so the turret sides are less exposed? Again, more internal storage and/or working room.
Just idle thoughts,
Alexio
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Post by squirmydad on Dec 10, 2021 17:13:37 GMT -9
All excellent questions, thank you for the commentary My design rationale for these vehicles is that they are makeshift and modified based on the original Onager chassis, not dedicated combat designs. The Ebbles Onager - www.genetmodels.com/ebbles-miniatures-2010-2011/ is just a utility vehicle widely in use on colony worlds. When this particular colony became isolated and suffered a resource collapse the different settlements began fending for themselves, some began raiding other settlements for supplies and equipment. A few years I crafted mods of Ebbles Convoy trucks with makeshift armor that a raiding settlement had converted into IFV's. The Onager mods I'm working on are a response from a settlement that has better industrial fabrication equipment, so their afv designs are slightly better. That is the backstory/rationale for my intentionally clunky designs. These are the vehicles from the Raider settlement, their armor is actually slabs of concrete bolted onto the vehicles.
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Post by alexio on Dec 11, 2021 15:39:18 GMT -9
I do like your truck mods.
And agree that if you're kludging onto an existing platform, you have to live with the design you start from.
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Post by squirmydad on Dec 11, 2021 16:29:45 GMT -9
"Kludge" that's a great word. The rough wip of the apc hull is ready, the little gun mount is from Ebbles/Genet patrol vehicles.
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Post by alexio on Dec 11, 2021 20:55:51 GMT -9
Trying to imagine a designer at the Onager works, I think I'd stick closer to the Onager design for an air defense platform.
Assumptions - budget design (why build on a tracked box truck otherwise), re-use of standard parts where available.
For ranges greater than the naked eye can aim, it would need sensors. I'd drop the driver down in the cab by changing his seat position to legs out front (like a sports car) instead of the 'up on a bench seat ' position of the stock Onager. Armored windows set lower down or sensors/cameras and no windows.
I'd add the front air search sensors to the top of the cab, either conformal panels on right and front brow above the windows, or redo the top of the cab to a half-circle or 3 panels set 60 degrees apart. I'd do the same at the back of the rear compartment except back and left sides, or the 3-panel, or the half circle), which would allow all-around surveillance and tracking that's easy to model and out of the turret's arc.
For the turret I'd borrow the well-proven turret from the Type 18 gun platform, maybe stealing gun parts from the M-9 APC. Setting it on top of the stock Onager box puts it above the sensors and fits the modified-Onager aesthetic more than building a whole new back section with the inset turret I suggested previously. And the Type 18 turret could fit several weapons of various types feeding from inside the pedestal (no fiddly gun parts or feedways, simple shapes for barrels). Additionally, the Type 18 turret has rotating guns pods on either side of a rotating pedestal, so it can point up and slew around like it should for its role. With a sensor suite to direct, you don't need space for humans in the turret.
Another reason to keep the mostly-stock Onager compartment is to account for space for ammunition or powerplant/energy storage to drive beam weapons.
It ends up boxy and taller than your design, but simpler to build in an onager factory.
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Post by alloydog on Dec 12, 2021 2:21:50 GMT -9
alexio Funny you said all that, I was thinking "Germany 1943-onwards": Taking obsolete vehicles and reworking them into new roles. The amount of PzKpfw IIIs used as the basis for anti-aircraft and tank hunting. An industrial society, but short on resources, as opposed to a society severely lacking in industrial facilities, such as 1980s Afghans against the Soviets or failed states, where vehicle mods are totally ad-hoc and each one is unique, made from wharever was at hand.
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Post by alexio on Dec 14, 2021 17:40:12 GMT -9
Having thrown the 'kludge' flag, i felt like i should put up my own, but it is taking a little more work to pull together. I have parts from the Onager, type 18, M-9, and modified tracks from the M8A3. I also borrowed Toposolitario's radar mast. Now I have to cut out and fit all of it together... I think the Type 18 turret is just Too Darned Big (TM).
I also want to go back later and put the modified M8A3 tracks onto the hull of the M-9 (which is wheeled) and then I can contemplate what sort of turret it should get.
Thanks for the inspirati0on!
Alexio
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Post by alexio on Dec 31, 2021 22:01:42 GMT -9
Finally free to start to cut out parts for an Onag-Air... Alexio
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Post by greypilgrim on Jan 1, 2022 8:53:23 GMT -9
Onag-Air ? Is it going to be a flying tank? (they did have plans for those way back when...)
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Post by alloydog on Jan 1, 2022 9:08:34 GMT -9
Onag-Air ? Is it going to be a flying tank? (they did have plans for those way back when...)
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Post by alexio on Jan 2, 2022 20:07:16 GMT -9
I mean to make an Air Defense version of the Onager...
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Post by Vermin King on Jan 3, 2022 5:51:39 GMT -9
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Post by squirmydad on Jan 10, 2022 20:13:20 GMT -9
I thought I was done with the apc, plopped the textured test-build onto the treads...I had mis-measured one piece, badly. I had to go back and redo the bow, lost a couple of hours, but I think I have it all done now.
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Post by Vermin King on Jan 11, 2022 5:53:16 GMT -9
Hopefully not this bad
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Post by squirmydad on Jan 11, 2022 7:20:18 GMT -9
Actually it was very much like that. Thank good ness for layers and layer styles so I can drop in the replacement piece and have everything work correctly without having to rebuild all of my texture work.
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Post by squirmydad on Jan 11, 2022 21:03:39 GMT -9
Building the apc hull; I included a small spacer/support block in case you want to slap a turret on and need extra support in the hull. It's a simple build and the Genet models weaponspack gives it a bit more character. I'm working on texturing the Wirbelwind turret and it occurs to me that I should make an apc hull variant that has a turret ring included as it would look nicer. It would be pretty easy to make too. Has anyone made a flatbed variant for the Onager? I can't recall, but if not then that'll be next after I finish the Wirbelwind.
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Post by squirmydad on Jan 11, 2022 21:04:34 GMT -9
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Post by squirmydad on Mar 16, 2022 20:04:02 GMT -9
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