"Eastern Front - Winter" Topic

Nice!

No link…..

Amicalement
Armand

Very nice. All we need is a Soviet Brad Pitt and crew still inside to spoil that chap's day. That tank is not going anywhere in a hurry I know but let me ask two dumb questions. How is a T34 propelled on tracks when there is no obvious toothed drive sprocket? Are the tracks gripped in their centre, rather than on their edge as with, say, an M4

Also, what are the two wires sticking out the front?

Great frost effect

Wow, some of the most convincing weathering I've seen on a model!

Deadhead, you're correct, the track horns are engaged by the drive sprocket, and so these function both as track guides and as driving mechanisms -

The wires – suppose it's to look as if the vehicle is being [cable] towed for recovery.

Thanks. Never noticed that before! The things you learn here…

Yep. Internal rollers (in the drive wheel) pushing on the tall center-guide leaves of every second track plate. Among other issues this created was that it required that each individual track link be longer than the more common toothed sprocket drive mechanism.

This, among several other things, was a characteristic of the "Christie" suspension. It was designed for driving a light tracked vehicle at high speeds.

The advantages were: 1) that it was somewhat more forgiving of misplacement of the track along the length (ie: the typical wobble at high speed caused by slack in the track), and 2) that it was also more forgiving of mud and snow in the running gear, as the area of engagement between drive wheel and track was several inches in depth (10cm or more), rather than the typical 1 to 2 inches (2.5 – 5cm) of a toothed drive sprocket. Christie was oblivious to this second advantage, as he was developing race-car tanks on narrow tracks for clean environments. But the Soviets were quite aware of this characteristic, as they were quite interested in tank mobility through mud and snow.

The disadvantages were: 1) that it was less forgiving of misplacement of the track to either side, as there was a significant (relative) gap between the leaves and the leaf was narrow, so that it was entirely possible to displace the track enough so that the following leaf would not engage into the narrow slot in the drive wheel, causing the track to be "walked off" of the suspension, and 2) that it placed all of the motive force (all of the stress of making the weight of the tank move) onto a relatively small piece of metal (the leaf) that was only on half of the track links, a factor that made it completely useless for driving heavier tanks. You can see from the very good images FlyX has provided that each drive wheel will typically only be engaging 3 leaves at any one moment in time -- so consider moving a 34 ton mass by pushing on only 6 four-inch high leaves of metal.

The British tossed the idea pretty much from the start (even the A13 abandoned this aspect of Christie's design). The Soviets tossed it after the T-34.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Happy you like it boys! (smile)

Thanks for the info!.

Amicalement
Armand