Warhammer 40K Leman Russ Design

[JagerIV]

Every now and again, I feel the desire to work on a Leman Russ design.

When messing with drawing diagrams, I came to the (obvious) realization that everyone comes to looking at the actual models, that there's barely enough space there for the gun and the one crewman shown, let alone more.

However, what if there was only 1 crewman and just enough space for the gun in the turret? A one man turret would be in line with the WWI-early WWII ascetics. And, some "modern" technology could limit many of the downsides. Points in Favor:

1) The turret being just large enough for the gun and a commander might dramatically shrink the needed volume for the turret, and thus overall armor needed. Turret is potentially very costly to armor, since it sticks out from the efficient to armor box, and being so high is also more likely to be hit, suggesting higher levels of armor than the main body too. Putting as little in the turret itself is thus a major advantage.

2) One of the major sources of overwork in a traditional 1 man turret is the need to load. This is easily solved with an autoloader: that also allows ammo to be stored in the hull, increasing armor efficiency. Most weapons a Leman Russ might be equipped with practically would have an autoloader anyways: Laser and plasma weapons obviously do not need a conventional loader, and autocannons by definition have some sort of auto loading setup. You may need someone to feed a clip depending on how limited the ready rounds are, but that still may be a net win to have the extra ammo and loader in the relatively safe hull.

3) Leman Russ are implied to have some level or sensors, electronics, and powered turrets. All of that makes crew location less dependent on equipment location: an optical sight requires the gunner to be located close to the gun: to be able to manually adjust elevation. With electronic sensors and fully powered systems however, the gunner can be placed elsewhere, and duplicated: your gunner could be in the hull, with the hull weapon, and potentially operate either the hull gun or turret gun, depending on the situation, while the commander can also operate the turret weapon to some reasonable degree despite being at the back of the turret, somewhat physically distant from the actual aiming and default sights for the gun. If the engine is also "drive by wire", which may be, theoretically it may be possible for the commander to drive and operate the full tank from the commanders chair, though that is likely sub optimal.

4) Thus, with fairly primitive tech, you both can theoretically have the commander do any task in the tank, which is valuable for redundancy in crew casualties and when crew quality can be uneven: ideally you'd have a generally competent crew, but if you can only guarantee one generally competent person per tank, that one competent person can wrangle from the other incompetents. But, the tech also allows the rest of the crew to participate too, and the one commander in the turret doesn't have to do everything either: tech makes the 1 man turret closer to a 2-3 man one in operation.

5) However, still having someone in the turret makes sense to me as well, rather than going for a completely unmanned turret: for one it provides redundancy: you don't want one guy to have to manually hand crank the turret if the electronics fail, but if you need to your glad its an option: he might not have an optimally placed optical sight, but he can have some sights and range finder is video fails. Having someone who can look through periscopes at the top of the tank, or stick his head out to have a look around seems to still provide some advantage to situational awareness, as well as someone to man the pintle mounted gun. Plus it gives someone with an eye in the turret who can visually confirm the autoloaders functioning, fix an error if he does see a problem, and try to manually load if its not a fixable problem, and generally have a broader situational awareness of the interior of the vehicle.

6) Smaller turret, while saving weight on the turret itself, can also allow a shrinking of the vehicle overall, as the volume for a turret basket is also minimized.

Thus, especially within 40k Imperial guard limitations, and the planetary militia situations its my understanding the Leman Russ standard template is designed for, it seems like a 2+ crew in the hull and 1 man turret makes sense for a vehicle like the Leman Russ, over either a 3-4 man turret or a fully automated turret, even though such would be theoretically possible for the Imperial guard to do.

 

[Scooby Doo]

Sounds like to me your design is suggesting the Halo Scorpion Tank but smaller

 

[Crom's Black Blade]

Imperial guard limitations, and the planetary militia situations its my understanding the Leman Russ standard template is designed for, it seems like a 2+ crew in the hull and 1 man turret makes sense for a vehicle like the Leman Russ, over either a 3-4 man turret or a fully automated turret, even though such would be theoretically possible for the Imperial guard to do.

I'll have to double check my copies but I think 40K tanks are generally portrayed with crews of 4-5+ rather than three.

Further reducing crews/increasing work load generally hampers effectiveness as the commander has to worry about targeting the gun(s), situational awareness, ammo issues etc.

Considering the basic quality of most of their forces, and how manpower is the least thing they are short on, stuffing half a dozen in one sardine can to idiot monkey do one task likely is more effective than the specialized and capable troops a reduced crew tank would require.

 

[JagerIV]

Sounds like to me your design is suggesting the Halo Scorpion Tank but smaller

How so? Isn't that one seated in the front? Or am I just horribly out of date with the Scorpion lore?

I'll have to double check my copies but I think 40K tanks are generally portrayed with crews of 4-5+ rather than three.

Further reducing crews/increasing work load generally hampers effectiveness as the commander has to worry about targeting the gun(s), situational awareness, ammo issues etc.

Considering the basic quality of most of their forces, and how manpower is the least thing they are short on, stuffing half a dozen in one sardine can to idiot monkey do one task likely is more effective than the specialized and capable troops a reduced crew tank would require.

The overall crew would like be larger: for example sponson gunners would add 2 crew. There may be an additional loader or two in the hull itself.

The specifics are on the turret itself, and specifically the skilled portion of the crew: namely the Commander, gunner, and driver. Replacing the loader with an autoloader makes sense, even with the sometimes finicky tech available: its very low tech, and many weapons basically require it, such as autocannons or lascannons. Demolishers maybe depending how big that round actually is.

The big question there then would be 2 man crew or 1 man crew. since a bow gun needs a gunner there, that suggests having two crew in the front of the hull, which also allows for efficient armoring. Thus, the question there is how necessary it is to have two gunners, one for the hull gun, and one for the turret.

For a standard Leman Russ under generally plausible situation, not super necessary I think: if your doing long range anti armor fire, the gunner in the hull likely isn't firing his heavy bolter, so he would just be sitting around adding some situational awareness, when he could instead be directing the main gun. Or if the hull weapon is a lascanon and that is the main anti armor weapon, its important for your best gunner to be manning that and closely coordinating with the driver to get the right angle, and the commander just needs to maintain situational awareness and launch harassing fire with the main gun against other targets.

And while general manpower might be an issue, quality manpower often is. If your tanking school can graduate, say, 1,000 competent tankers, it might make more sense to spread those out across a 1,000 Leman Rus's they can somewhat run themselves and let them train up the couple of less competent assigned under them to lower the workload best they can, Rather than concentrating those 1,000 competent trained tankers into 300 well manned Leman Rus's

 

[Crom's Black Blade]

The specifics are on the turret itself, and specifically the skilled portion of the crew: namely the Commander, gunner, and driver. Replacing the loader with an autoloader makes sense, even with the sometimes finicky tech available: its very low tech, and many weapons basically require it, such as autocannons or lascannons.

Swapping out a loader for autoloader is certainly possible through it may not necessarily be advantageous. The US, I believe, still relies on a physical loader citing I believe a human can more swiftly switch between anti-armor and high explosives than an automatic loader can. Further Imperium technology has a very run-down, temperamental aesthetic meaning a 40k autoloader would likely not work particularly well. And obviously it's another bottle neck of resources since it's another piece of equipment that would require admech/enginseers to maintain which is a very limited resources.

The big question there then would be 2 man crew or 1 man crew.

Even if you are just referring to the hull and not the entire crew of the tank it would have to be at least two not counting any sponson guns since you need a gunner and driver. A radio operator would also likely be useful. All in all you are unlikely to get a tank below 4-5 crew members in total.

For a standard Leman Russ under generally plausible situation, not super necessary I think: if your doing long range anti armor fire, the gunner in the hull likely isn't firing his heavy bolter

A standard Leman Russ would likely have sponson lascannons which, since those are effective anti-armor weapons, would almost certainly be engaged alongwith the main cannon. But even assuming a variant with heavy bolters then their purpose would be to provide anti-infantry support. Either in support of their own forces or in it's own defense. In either case it gun would require a dedicated crewmember to serve it. Forcing one man to crawl inside the cramp interior to man several different weapons during a hectic battle is going to drastically diminish effectiveness and lead to disproportionate destruction of Leman Russ's.

Or if the hull weapon is a lascanon and that is the main anti armor weapon, its important for your best gunner to be manning that and closely coordinating with the driver to get the right angle, and the commander just needs to maintain situational awareness and launch harassing fire with the main gun against other targets.

Similarly expecting a commander to also serve as a gunner will lead to lower effectiveness and wasted resources in killed crew, destroyed machines and time cross-training someone to do two jobs worse than two people could each do one.

It would be different if the Imperium employed some Battletech like interface that made the tank and commander an extension of each other, giving him the same innate awareness around the tank that a person would have about his own person, but outside of maybe Titans that isn't really a thing.

And while general manpower might be an issue, quality manpower often is.

Which is why the Imperium, having a relative abundance of manpower but is far more limited in terms of quality, would focus on a doctrine which emphasizes their strengths as opposed to their weakness.

To the Imperium its far cheaper to hose out the former crew and patch up a tank designed to be as rugged and simple to maintain as possible than building a complex tank to be crewed by a smaller but more skilled operators. What you are describing sounds far more like something the Tau would do who do value their soldiers and have a more Western "Army of One" flavor to them compared to the "We have Reserves" of the Guard.

If your tanking school can graduate, say, 1,000 competent tankers, it might make more sense to spread those out across a 1,000 Leman Rus's they can somewhat run themselves and let them train up the couple of less competent assigned under them to lower the workload best they can, Rather than concentrating those 1,000 competent trained tankers into 300 well manned Leman Rus's

Except one man can't run a tank by themselves. So instead of 300 effective tanks you'd have a 1000 effective coffins

 

[JagerIV]

picture of 1 man turret layout. Scanner wasn't working, so just a photo. Each square is a foot.

Main turret ring is 4 foot/48 inch/120 cm. Secondary turrets for the sponson is 3 feet wide. bellow drawing assume rotating turret, with the weapon just on the far outside to keep as much of the turret behind the main armor layer as possible, with effort to put it far out enough to allow some gun depression in the forward so at range the sponsons can add forward fire, and to add some angles to the rear, so general flank cover can be provided.

If the sponsons could just be a remote turret however, that would be ideal, saving on some internal armor and making the interior less crowded. Front hull gunner is assumed to be a Lascannon, with the gunners seat able to rotate a bit with the gun. The location of the driver and tracks limits angle of fire to the left, allowing a bit more field of view to the right.

This is a very small tank, especially for its weight, and all the fighting positions are very cramped. However, there is a 2 foot wide hallway in the rear to give access to all the turrets, and the driver compartment should be able to squeeze through too, how easily dependent upon how closed the turrets are. This is necessary for access, provides space to store other necessary equipment, and theoretical space for three men to sleep in the tank mostly straight. This would assumedly be useful, especially in hostile environments.

The most roomy position is the commander in the one man turret, the dotted outline, as benefits rank. He might be able to almost fully recline in his position by raising some sort of foot rest into the loading area. It might be possible to get a gunner into the turret without too extensive redesign, but with less space for radios, and it would increase the weight of the turret.

Turret is only slightly ahead of the center.

Swapping out a loader for autoloader is certainly possible through it may not necessarily be advantageous. The US, I believe, still relies on a physical loader citing I believe a human can more swiftly switch between anti-armor and high explosives than an automatic loader can. Further Imperium technology has a very run-down, temperamental aesthetic meaning a 40k autoloader would likely not work particularly well. And obviously it's another bottle neck of resources since it's another piece of equipment that would require admech/enginseers to maintain which is a very limited resources.


Even if you are just referring to the hull and not the entire crew of the tank it would have to be at least two not counting any sponson guns since you need a gunner and driver. A radio operator would also likely be useful. All in all you are unlikely to get a tank below 4-5 crew members in total.


A standard Leman Russ would likely have sponson lascannons which, since those are effective anti-armor weapons, would almost certainly be engaged alongwith the main cannon. But even assuming a variant with heavy bolters then their purpose would be to provide anti-infantry support. Either in support of their own forces or in it's own defense. In either case it gun would require a dedicated crewmember to serve it. Forcing one man to crawl inside the cramp interior to man several different weapons during a hectic battle is going to drastically diminish effectiveness and lead to disproportionate destruction of Leman Russ's.


Similarly expecting a commander to also serve as a gunner will lead to lower effectiveness and wasted resources in killed crew, destroyed machines and time cross-training someone to do two jobs worse than two people could each do one.

It would be different if the Imperium employed some Battletech like interface that made the tank and commander an extension of each other, giving him the same innate awareness around the tank that a person would have about his own person, but outside of maybe Titans that isn't really a thing.


Which is why the Imperium, having a relative abundance of manpower but is far more limited in terms of quality, would focus on a doctrine which emphasizes their strengths as opposed to their weakness.

To the Imperium its far cheaper to hose out the former crew and patch up a tank designed to be as rugged and simple to maintain as possible than building a complex tank to be crewed by a smaller but more skilled operators. What you are describing sounds far more like something the Tau would do who do value their soldiers and have a more Western "Army of One" flavor to them compared to the "We have Reserves" of the Guard.


Except one man can't run a tank by themselves. So instead of 300 effective tanks you'd have a 1000 effective coffins

1) Autoloaders can be fairly minimal equipment. Many of the elements of an autoloader are identical technology that has to be employed throughout the rest of the vehicle: hydraulics, electronics, etcetera, so its not necessarily dramatically more equipment. Plus the issue that many weapons will require an "autoloader" anyways, such as the autocannon, lascannon, and plasma cannon Russ. Maybe in a more limited auto loader you might only have a very limited clip of 3-6 ready rounds, and a loader in the hull can transfer rounds up. Drawing it up though it looks like you might manage a loader, but not a dedicated gunner.

2) Specifically talking there about crew in the turret: having a one man or two man turret: I think it can likely get away with 1 man crew, maybe a two man crew of commander and loader if an autoloader isn't available.

3) This highlights one of the reasons I think you can get away with a 1 man turret: the main cannon is a weapon among many. In many situations the hull weapons may be more important than the main gun. Thus, sacrifices on the main gun to improve the effectiveness of the hull weapons may make sense.

By switching between, I just mean switching focus on a shared work station, not physically moving: having a hull gunner position and a gunner position in the turret means your not actually getting the benefit of a smaller turret.

4) The commander however is not going to be as overloaded as in the case of a more conventional tank, because there are all these other crew in the hull: the commander for example has 3 gunners in the hull. One of which could likely act as a secondary commander: a corporal to the commanding sergeant. Some tech advances make things easier.

5) Eh, comes down to some of the other trade offs. The Soviets for example despite having less tight labor constraints on its military for example was the one to make sacrifices to crew size to boost number of tanks and increase overall performance, such as protection vs weight.

For example, the 1 man turret design above makes the Russ 3 meters wide with sponsons, meaning its 2 meters shorter and 0.5 meter thinner than an Abrams, something only possible by minimizing the turret size. So, if you had a transport with 1 acre of floor space (4,000 m^2, roughly a football field), you could fit roughly 133 Abrams, or 200 Abrams.

Small size also of course allows much more armor: for example having 400 mm line of site for the frontal arc in the above design (hull and turret) or general steel only takes 15 tons of steel, some 25% of the 60 ton weight.

 

[Crom's Black Blade]

1) Autoloaders can be fairly minimal equipment. Many of the elements of an autoloader are identical technology that has to be employed throughout the rest of the vehicle: hydraulics, electronics, etcetera, so its not necessarily dramatically more equipment. Plus the issue that many weapons will require an "autoloader" anyways, such as the autocannon, lascannon, and plasma cannon Russ. Maybe in a more limited auto loader you might only have a very limited clip of 3-6 ready rounds, and a loader in the hull can transfer rounds up. Drawing it up though it looks like you might manage a loader, but not a dedicated gunner.

Well lascanons and plasma canons wouldn't require an "autoloader" like a tank gun would. Even an autocannon would be a much smaller shell, possible by quite a lot since "autocannon" in 40k seems to be a malleable term than represent many calibers.

And it likely wouldn't count as "fairly minimal equipment" for the Imperium of man which frequently relies on brute manpower in place of machines up to and including loading shells into the Nova Canon. Any hydraulics and electronics represent an expensive investment of time and resources when they're far cheaper alternatives.

2) Specifically talking there about crew in the turret: having a one man or two man turret: I think it can likely get away with 1 man crew, maybe a two man crew of commander and loader if an autoloader isn't availabl

I don't really understand your insistence on trying to remove the gunner from the gun. It just makes no sense to me.

3) This highlights one of the reasons I think you can get away with a 1 man turret: the main cannon is a weapon among many. In many situations the hull weapons may be more important than the main gun. Thus, sacrifices on the main gun to improve the effectiveness of the hull weapons may make sense.

Well one of the problems of multi-turret tanks and why that was largely a dead evolutionary end was that a single person couldn't coordinate all those guns and dividing one's attention between them made them weaker than the sum of their parts. Your problem would compound this issue forcing the commander to worry about multiple guns, situational awareness and targeting.

By switching between, I just mean switching focus on a shared work station, not physically moving: having a hull gunner position and a gunner position in the turret means your not actually getting the benefit of a smaller turret.

Well that increases training requirements since crew no longer have to be trained in how to do their job but they need to be trained to operate this workstation O/S to quickly swap around. Considering that the Imperium has a broad but not necessarily very complex pool to draw upon they likely would forgoe such an option to keep it simple.

And of course this work station would be a very advanced piece of equipment which dramatically increases the time and resources invested per tank.

The commander however is not going to be as overloaded as in the case of a more conventional tank, because there are all these other crew in the hull: the commander for example has 3 gunners in the hull. One of which could likely act as a secondary commander: a corporal to the commanding sergeant. Some tech advances make things easier.

And none of that actually solves the problem, if anything it just compounds it. Now we have a distracted commander trying to be a gunner and a distracted gunner trying to be a commander. So we now have two people overloaded with tasks instead of one.

Eh, comes down to some of the other trade offs. The Soviets for example despite having less tight labor constraints on its military for example was the one to make sacrifices to crew size to boost number of tanks and increase overall performance, such as protection vs weight.

I'm not sure there was much of a trade-off as opposed to the Soviets armor just being at a disadvantage. Since between the lack of radios and small crews Soviet tanks were relatively easily picked off and destroyed even when they had the advantage in armor and firepower.

Hell there is an admittedly antidotal story of a German anti-tank gun firing repeatedly on a T-34 failing to find an angle to penetrated and the tank is apparently just letting it happen.

For example, the 1 man turret design above makes the Russ 3 meters wide with sponsons, meaning its 2 meters shorter and 0.5 meter thinner than an Abrams, something only possible by minimizing the turret size. So, if you had a transport with 1 acre of floor space (4,000 m^2, roughly a football field), you could fit roughly 133 Abrams, or 200 Abrams.

Seems like an awful lot of hindrance and self-inflicted impairment just to get less than 70 extra Lemans per acre of transport space.

 

[JagerIV]

Well lascanons and plasma canons wouldn't require an "autoloader" like a tank gun would. Even an autocannon would be a much smaller shell, possible by quite a lot since "autocannon" in 40k seems to be a malleable term than represent many calibers.

And it likely wouldn't count as "fairly minimal equipment" for the Imperium of man which frequently relies on brute manpower in place of machines up to and including loading shells into the Nova Canon. Any hydraulics and electronics represent an expensive investment of time and resources when they're far cheaper alternatives.

Eh, compared to all the other tech, it is pretty minor. Or, compared to a Plasma weapon, an autoloader is probably an order of magnitude less maintenance and equipment. We are talking 40-50s tech. It seems a reasonable bit of equipment, especially given all the other powered equipment and everything else is basically some type of automatic.

I don't really understand your insistence on trying to remove the gunner from the gun. It just makes no sense to me.

A smaller turret saves a lot of weight. In an infantry tank, which seems to be a good description of how a Leman Russ seems to work, when your already sacrificing speed, doubling up on being as small as possible (also helps with mobility) and armored as possible seems reasonable.

Well one of the problems of multi-turret tanks and why that was largely a dead evolutionary end was that a single person couldn't coordinate all those guns and dividing one's attention between them made them weaker than the sum of their parts. Your problem would compound this issue forcing the commander to worry about multiple guns, situational awareness and targeting.

Well that increases training requirements since crew no longer have to be trained in how to do their job but they need to be trained to operate this workstation O/S to quickly swap around. Considering that the Imperium has a broad but not necessarily very complex pool to draw upon they likely would forgoe such an option to keep it simple.

And of course this work station would be a very advanced piece of equipment which dramatically increases the time and resources invested per tank.

And none of that actually solves the problem, if anything it just compounds it. Now we have a distracted commander trying to be a gunner and a distracted gunner trying to be a commander. So we now have two people overloaded with tasks instead of one.

I'm not sure it would be particularly complex, other equipment implied suggests some display is not out of the question. I agree though a dedicated commander does make more sense, because there's so many moving parts: rearanging things, I think I can make space in the lower hull for a commander, or at least dedicated head gunner, if the commander insists on being in the turret.

This would be a crew of 6 with two sponsons. Possibly up to 8 if there are hull based loaders who move ammo to other guns and can tend the main gun: sort of a half way solution to the main weapon autoloader, while keeping dimensions more or less the same: basically the plan is to move the turret back a foot or two, so a commander/gunner can be placed in the center of all the crew.

So, 1 commander (who still might have hunter killer controls to control the gun and vehicle if necessary, something similar to the Strv 103 set up)



Then you have 4 gunners. Ideally the main gunners in the turret, and the commander is in a central command chair to direct all the gunners. Committing to the sponson weapons being remote weapons simplifies armoring, makes the interior more spacious, and better matches the model look, and makes more sense with the sponsons being an optional add on: they're literally bolted on, and thus don't necessarily take up a lot of interior volume, as ball turrets do, as you can see in the diagram: and in those 3 foot balls might be overly tight anyways, so non-remote may actually require a larger turret footprint. Remote turrets save a lot of internal volume.

I'm not sure there was much of a trade-off as opposed to the Soviets armor just being at a disadvantage. Since between the lack of radios and small crews Soviet tanks were relatively easily picked off and destroyed even when they had the advantage in armor and firepower.

Hell there is an admittedly antidotal story of a German anti-tank gun firing repeatedly on a T-34 failing to find an angle to penetrated and the tank is apparently just letting it happen.


Seems like an awful lot of hindrance and self-inflicted impairment just to get less than 70 extra Lemans per acre of transport space.

I was much more thinking on the post war tanks, like the t-64 and such than WWII.

 

[Crom's Black Blade]

Eh, compared to all the other tech, it is pretty minor. Or, compared to a Plasma weapon, an autoloader is probably an order of magnitude less maintenance and equipment. We are talking 40-50s tech. It seems a reasonable bit of equipment, especially given all the other powered equipment and everything else is basically some type of automatic.

Well for starters there is nothing minor when it comes to Imperium tech. It's all scavenged from a previous civilization and they have gaps because they've lost those specific blueprints. This, coupled with the limited understanding of how their technology works, means its completely possible for them to build a plasma cannon but be unable to build an autoloader that works.

We also have evidence that Imperium plasma weapons aren't the most reliable so those aren't the best example anyway.

And of course as I've mentioned the Imperium loads Nova cannon shells by men tugging on ropes instead of an automated process. Why do you ignore actual evidence to prattle on about systems that have never been shown to exist in a Leman Russ?

A smaller turret saves a lot of weight. In an infantry tank, which seems to be a good description of how a Leman Russ seems to work, when your already sacrificing speed, doubling up on being as small as possible (also helps with mobility) and armored as possible seems reasonable.

The question is why you insist on removing the gunner, forcing the commander to do two jobs, not on if a smaller turret might have some potential advantage.

Now you can't get that advantage with the Leman Russ. It's height and width are already set in stone by canon

Leman Russ Battle Tank - Warhammer 40k - Lexicanum

wh40k.lexicanum.com

I'm not sure it would be particularly complex, other equipment implied suggests some display is not out of the question.

If your referring to the example *I* posted a while back that was incredibly vague and was certainly nothing like you've been describing. But you are free to post what you have to try and justify this.

So, 1 commander (who still might have hunter killer controls to control the gun and vehicle if necessary, something similar to the Strv 103 set up)

I don't believe the Chieftain is canon to 40k or employed by the Imperium. Do you have an actual source that says they have hunter-killer controls?

Then you have 4 gunners. Ideally the main gunners in the turret, and the commander is in a central command chair to direct all the gunners.

Putting the commander in a central command chair like this likely would make it hard for him to open the tank hatch and see his surroundings limiting his ability to maintain battlefield awareness..

Committing to the sponson weapons being remote weapons simplifies armoring

But increases complexity and the likliehood it'll break down. Both of which are likely a higher priority to the Imperium than either more optimal armor or freeing up internal space.

I was much more thinking on the post war tanks, like the t-64 and such than WWII.

Wouldn't WWII be the ideal test case. It was a pitched war between two roughly peer opponents. The Soviets had the advantage in both armor and guns, at least initially, if the three-man crew didn't hamper them they should have performed better against their German opposites.

 

[JagerIV]

Well for starters there is nothing minor when it comes to Imperium tech. It's all scavenged from a previous civilization and they have gaps because they've lost those specific blueprints. This, coupled with the limited understanding of how their technology works, means its completely possible for them to build a plasma cannon but be unable to build an autoloader that works.

We also have evidence that Imperium plasma weapons aren't the most reliable so those aren't the best example anyway.

And of course as I've mentioned the Imperium loads Nova cannon shells by men tugging on ropes instead of an automated process. Why do you ignore actual evidence to prattle on about systems that have never been shown to exist in a Leman Russ?

I am not ignoring evidence, I am simply not weighing them as strongly as you. For example, while Nova cannons might be manually loaded, there are also several situations where servitors do serve as a sort of automation. We ourselves have manually loaded tanks, and autoloaded tanks, more or less for 70 years. Its evidence, sure, but not decisive, and the setting inherently suggests wiggle room, and death of the author/fantasy means some level of death of the author is inherent, especially with a setting that is this old and has this many involved.

The question is why you insist on removing the gunner, forcing the commander to do two jobs, not on if a smaller turret might have some potential advantage.

Now you can't get that advantage with the Leman Russ. It's height and width are already set in stone by canon

Leman Russ Battle Tank - Warhammer 40k - Lexicanum

wh40k.lexicanum.com

This is one of those things where I don't think its immensely set in stone, especially for a design project like this. Something can be recognizably a Leman Russ and 1 meter shorter than the given. Being completely bound to the described crew layout would also prevent much of this project, since that says the loader and hull gunner are the same, which seems a bit suboptimal to me.

Above them is the loader, responsible for loading the main gun and, as needed, manning the hull-mounted weapon.

If your referring to the example *I* posted a while back that was incredibly vague and was certainly nothing like you've been describing. But you are free to post what you have to try and justify this.

I don't believe the Chieftain is canon to 40k or employed by the Imperium. Do you have an actual source that says they have hunter-killer controls?

I was not making any reference to 40k source material since it has nothing to do with the argument presented there. Reference to real life shows what a hunter killer system is, something I'm not sure the average fantasy writer would have any reason to reference. In reference to screens, its all the other sensors described, generally lumped under "auspex". This generally seems to involve some sort of screen. Video is hardly unknown technology in 40k.

Putting the commander in a central command chair like this likely would make it hard for him to open the tank hatch and see his surroundings limiting his ability to maintain battlefield awareness..

But would make managing all the gunners easier, and with suffient tech maintaining battlefield awareness is doable. Comes down to what tasks the tech alows at x level of difficulty. More tech allows crew to perform more tasks without getting overwhelmed or overly fatigued. For example, a powered turret makes a large heavy turret viable in the first place, electronic, or at least powered stearing makes driving easier. A more advanced command and control makes command and control, well, easier.

But increases complexity and the likliehood it'll break down. Both of which are likely a higher priority to the Imperium than either more optimal armor or freeing up internal space.

Eh, the remote turret is probably less complex and has a lower chance of breaking down than a manual turret. Its much smaller, requiring less powerful motors, less weight, easier firing angles, cheaper installation, probably easier maintaince. Remote turrets have a lot of advantages. One reason why bombers tried for remote turrets very early: the thing that made them difficult with WWII tech was mostly targeting with the gunner so far removed from the gun. With slightly better than WWII tech, or even with WWII tech but design not crammed into such a limited timeframe, this is much less a problem.

Plus, well, other STC designs like the Predator and Land Raider also clearly use remote turrets, so remotely operated sponsons are clearly within the design philosophy of STCs.

Wouldn't WWII be the ideal test case. It was a pitched war between two roughly peer opponents. The Soviets had the advantage in both armor and guns, at least initially, if the three-man crew didn't hamper them they should have performed better against their German opposites.

Test case of what, exactly? WWII tanks performed better with more crew than less, given their roles and tech of the time? Are we thus to assume a B-17 is superior to a B-52 because the 17 has 10 crew while the 52 has 5?

And of course, you have the confounding variable that the USSR had worse troops overall than the Germans, with broadly worse equipment, so its hard to make the proper apples to apples comparison: if the USSR in 1941 had equally terrible troops in equally poorly maintained Panzer IIIs and IVs in 1941 instead of T-34s and KV-1s, would we have expected better or worse performance?

So many confounding variables its hard to say.

Plus in the end, the USSR did win.

I do agree history does suggest the 3 man (or two man with autoloader) turret is the historically proven design, and especially with WWII tech designs that started with two man turrets, like the Valentine or T-34, eventually transitioned to 3 mans when they could. It takes some major advantage (which could come down to logistics), to argue against at least a 2 man turret.

Which probably requires making the trade offs more clear. I am in fits an starts working on a diagram for a large turret ring Leman Russ, so we can have a source of comparison on how much is gained elsewhere on a small vs large turret. So we can look at the trade offs directly, rather than guess at them.

 

[Crom's Black Blade]

This is one of those things where I don't think its immensely set in stone, especially for a design project like this. Something can be recognizably a Leman Russ and 1 meter shorter than the given. Being completely bound to the described crew layout would also prevent much of this project, since that says the loader and hull gunner are the same, which seems a bit suboptimal to me.

Well if you are ignoring Canon then this isn't about the Leman Russ but your fanfic tank. I would ask you to kindly change the thread title to properly reflect that.

 

[Crom's Black Blade]

Test case of what, exactly? WWII tanks performed better with more crew than less, given their roles and tech of the time? Are we thus to assume a B-17 is superior to a B-52 because the 17 has 10 crew while the 52 has 5

That's a poor comparison. The B-17 had more crew manned guns the B-52 didn't require. That's a far cry from it it's a good idea to make the commander play Gunner.

Further a perfect apples to apples comparison is never going to be possible. I picked WWII because that was a major conflict of two peer powers. Which seems relavent to the discussion at hand.

Lastly the Allies won WWII. On their on I'm not sure they'd have been able too. So that no more validated the USSR decisions than France being on the winning side validated the Maginote line.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Well if you are ignoring Canon then this isn't about the Leman Russ but your fanfic tank. I would ask you to kindly change the thread title to properly reflect that.

Jager IV Pattern Leman Russ.