Re: Bring on the infantry [TANKS]

["WJ" <WJ-at-vdtogt.nl>]

This brings to mind a toy I saw not too long ago, this was a plastic toy
soldier, prone position, which could crawl along the ground.  It looked
like a very simple, slow  but effective way to move around, The soldier
could flex around the midsection to crawl along.

> To reply to the various points raised:
>
> 1. I accept that a HE shot arriving within 6 feet would seriously
> inconvenience an infantryman! The problem I was raising was that if one
> has a walker, walking on its feet (as opposed to on a motorised base, say)
> then he can't also stand on a base. I suppose that you could suspend a 12"
> hoop around his waist, but it would look a bit Elizabeth I. More
> realisticly one could measure with a hoop after a shot, but this would
> slow things down considerably.
>
> 2. Yes, obviously there would in reality be thousands of infantry around,
> but we are only concerned about the one with a bazooka, who would not be
> walking around but hiding ina hole and difficult to hit or even see.
>
> 3.I take Steve's point about the vulnerability of the machanical marvel
> which I am trying to create. Size, vulnerability, and speed are all issues
> with a 12" robot. I have a feeling that if one is to produce a walker that
> is battleworthy then it will probably be nearer 24" high (I just wandered
> off into a fantasy there about a motorised base, or "moving foxhole"
> perhaps, but I think that basically that's a t-a-n-k).
>
> Another possibility would be a very simple walker with no steering, no rc,
> that just walked forward until it touched a tank with its outstretched
> paintball (or perhaps used a PIR or very simple rc so that it fired when
> something came in view).  One could make these cheaply and fairly robustly
> and set off say 6 or more at a time. Casualties would be horrendous, but
> that's war.
>
> 4. Someone asked about servos and the difficulty of constantly reversing
> them. I am using a "sun and planet" system, so the motor goes 1 way only.
> It's a bit like the way a steam railway engine (or internal combustion
> engine) converts an in-out piston movement into a circular movement, only
> the other way round. I have some photos of a couple of test rigs but I
> can't get them up at the moment.
>
> For myself though I'm going with the "delicate walker" option, and see
> where it takes me. Thanks for everyone's comments. The site has produced
> "Cheap control Systems" which looks very interesting. The point about
> infra-red is that unlike rc you can shield it, so that you can control say
> 3 figures individually or all together.
>
> Cheers
>
> Phil
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mxlyons-at-cox.net
> To: tanks-at-rctankcombat.com
> Sent: Thu, 1 Feb 2007 3.23AM
> Subject: Re: Bring on the infantry [TANKS]
>
>
> For the record, I proposed a 12" radius i.e. 2 foot diameter, which scales
> to 6
> feet in any direction.
>
> Regards,
>   Mike Lyons
>
> ...
>> > so would you say that a 12" disc of some sort  (paper plate maybe?)
>> > would be acceptable as a kill zone?
>> >
>> > Chris
>> > Odyssey Slipways <http://hometown.aol.com/odysseyslipways/index.html>
>>
>> To be honest 12" (6ft) isn't anywhere near what I would suspect is the
>> killzone of an average tank shell.
>> But I think for what we are doing 12" would be good.
>