"The HQC Land Battleship" Topic

Arun and I have been working very hard at getting the design and drawings of the HQC Land battleship. Actually I supplied the basic design sketch and then made a huge number of nit picky comments and suggestions which Arun was kind enough not to kill me over and generous enough to continue working with me (although I don't deserve to work with such talent!)

Vehicle Height 8.6m
Vehicle Body Width 9.2m
Vehicle Body Length 46.9m (2 articulated segments)
Vehicle Weelbase (Length) 51.192m
Vehicle Wheel Track 9.172m
Wheel/Track Width 1.97m
Vehicle Clearance 1.07m
Vehicle Mass 1754628kg
Vehicle Height (w/o turrets) 5.76m
Vehicle CoG 2.57m (total) / 3.02m (sprung)
Critical Tipping angle 61°
Ground Pressure 85kPa (83% of an M1 Tank)

Armor
Top 2.54cm Steel
Bottom 2.54cm Steel
Front 11.43cm Steel
Back 2.54cm Steel
Inter-segment 2.54cm Steel
Left 11.43cm Steel
Right 11.43cm Steel

Suspension Lightly Damped Macpherson/Christie
Engine 7.6MW Electrical Motor
Power Source 9.5MW Turbine
Transmission Direct Drive
Crew 231 working + 160 carried
Cost £422,640.59 GBP
Reliability 102 km/F

Equipment Watertight Hull,,Tread Skirts,Toolbox,Commodore's Flag Bridge
Aerolyth None
Nav & Sensor 1 Aldis Lamp,1 CRF (4m),1 Plotting Board MkII,2 452km Radio
Computing None
Cargo 15147.73kg 30.3m^3
Weapons 4 Colt Machine Gun (Coaxial), 16 Colt Machine Gun (Sponson), 16 Colt Machine Gun (bottom), 4 Rapid Fire Gun, 6-pounder, 10 5-inch BL Siege Rifle,

Max Speed
Asphalt , dry 6.93m/s 24.95km/hr 15.49mi/hr
Asphalt, wet 6.93m/s 24.95km/hr 15.49mi/hr
Dry Sand 2.18m/s 7.85km/hr 4.87mi/hr
Clayey Soil 2.18m/s 7.85km/hr 4.87mi/hr
Sandy Loam 2.18m/s 7.85km/hr 4.87mi/hr
Snow 2.15m/s 7.74km/hr 4.81mi/hr
Water Impassable

They were ordered by the czar for use in the steppes of the empire. He wanted to foreign source them to keep there details away from the zucks. When the hive war broke out the US government was desperate for anything that could be used, so it confiscated the four of these being built.

The new names for them will be for presidents who had been generals
Washington
Tyler
Jackson
Grant

The command center was a Russian requirement but was not used by the us army. That space would be re-purposed for something else.

Bottom turrets (Quad MGs) are retractable.

That's going on my list.

Cloud Captain
thanks, us designers can ask for no higher praise! When I get one of these in 15mm you can look for a very long and narrow game on the convention circuit, either VSF giant tank versus lots of VSF little tanks or VSF giant tank versus a zillion ugly bugs. That way I can run a big game up on a table instead of on the floor (Yes I know this is basically Steampunk Ogre, but it's been a good idea for a game since the 1970s!)

The five inch siege rifles can be replaced with seven inch siege howitzers or twin three in dual purpose weapons. The mass is nearly identical for these swaps.

The machine as originally ordered by the tsar would probably have had European weapons. In this case all the weapons are historical United States Army ones, except the three inch dual purpose. Those will probably be based on historical weapons but ones slightly out of period

Other fun facts:

The vehicle is driven by electrical motors which are powered by a steam turbine. The Turbine is a six-stage impulse pressure-compounding (Rateau) turbine. Steam enters at 2.48 MPa at 365C (143-degrees of superheating) and exits to the condenser at .005 MPa. With 20kg/sec of steam, the turbine produces 9.5MW of mechanical power.

The use of an electrical drive with a turbine is slightly less fuel efficient than a direct drive compound steam piston engine. However, the high torque of the electrical motor allows better off-road and slope climbing abilities, which are critical to such a large vehicle. A geared reciprocating steam engine was considered, but the additional complexity of the transmission system would have hurt reliability and the mass would have been prohibitive.

We were shooting for a machine that would be over the top but not too over the top. It has a lot of offensive and defensive firepower and ended up with more armor and better speed than we expected. It is faster on the flat than a lot of lesser machines but will have a hard time in any close terrain

The funnel is a nod to the Lexington class carriers with their turbo electric drive ststems

No, I'm pretty sure over-the-top is unavoidable.

I'll go with 'reasonably over-the-top', though.

Good off.

Doug

Looks great! A little pricey for a miniature though, especially in 15mm:

Cost £422,640.59 GBP GBP

:) :)

Doug – Thanks, we try to keep our craziness reasonable. :-)

The design process for this one was interesting. The ground pressure ends up being fairly low. We used the terramechanics estimates from "Theory of Ground Vehicles" by Wong to estimate sinkage and it is generally <6cm for most off-road soils (except snow). Combined with the good torque performance of electrical motors and the high specific power of a turbine and the off-road performance is surprisingly reasonable. The speed estimates above assume a 10-degree slope to account for terrain irregularities.

We looked a lot at the Space shuttle Crawler-transporter for inspiration – similar mass and an diesel-electric system.

All in all, I think the vehicle _could_ be build, but, outside of the specific world of HQC probably _wouldn't_ get built.

That is Arun' design process. My part was a bit different. I take a pad of graph paper and a number 2 pencil and start drawing. I erase a lot. I draw some more. I look at historical machines and erase a few more things. I try and think how the machine would be used. I lose the pad under a couch cushion for two weeks. I draw some more and finally get something I like. I scan the sketches to Arun and ask him to cucumber numbers and make pretty digital drawings.

We looked a lot at the Space shuttle Crawler-transporter for inspiration – similar mass and an diesel-electric system.

All in all, I think the vehicle _could_ be build, but, outside of the specific world of HQC probably _wouldn't_ get built.

The Shuttle Crawler-transporter is actually based off of an open-pit coal mining beast, and those have been weaponized in a couple settings other than yours.

Ringo's Posleen War series, for example, has "SheVa 9", aka "Bun-Bun". "SheVa" from Shenandoa Valley Mining Equipment, and Bun-bun was the 9th such monster self-propelled gun built by them. Bun-bun is armed with a 16" smoothbore gun 1600" long, conceptually a scaled up tank gun. APFSDS rounds with a 200kt antimatter kicker, just to make absolutely SURE those incoming landers die.

Bob
That is in 15mm scale money so it all works out

Wicked looking

Lion – Ha! I forgot about Bun-Bun in Ringo's work. That was quite a machine!

Love the detailed fluff. Great model, too!

Thanks!

Grignotage – Thanks! Terry is great at the geopolitics and storyline fluff, I like the math-based fluff. Together, I think it offers a unique combo. :-)

Great looking model.

Tony

link

A bigger image

Amazing work!

Thanks Javelin!