Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'm teaching myself to do 3D modelling and decided to have a go at making a 40k style tank which filled the same role as the Leman Russ. Still a work in progress, obviously, but I thought I'd share some of my ideas with you and see what you thought.

I wanted to keep the overall 1930's aesthetic, chunky proportions and armament of the LR. The two major differences between my design and the Russ are that I put the main gun in the hull and went with lower, wider and more practical-looking tracks.

Moving the main gun to the hull allows it to have a greater degree of elevation and depression than would be practical in a turret and gives more room for loaders, plus it gives a more stable mount for a high-recoil weapon. Only being able to fire forwards is an issue, but I don't think that this thing is likely to be making flanking attacks. It also allows the turret to mount a high-elevation heavy bolter or lascannon, which can provide air defence or allow the tank to attack infantry in tall buildings and the like.

This design has room for five crew. The forward crew cab holds the driver and a gunner who operates both the main gun and left sponson. The driver sits forward of the main hull in a well-armoured box, giving him good visibility to the sides of the vehicle. Behind the main gun is a compartment for it's loader, who also controls the right sponson. In the turret, there is the commander (who operates any sponson mounted weapon) and the turret gunner. Should a driver, commander or gunner be killed, the other crewman in their compartment can take over their controls (the loader is unlikely to be killed without the vehicle being destroyed in the process).

Perfect Organism wrote:


Moving the main gun to the hull allows it to have a greater degree of elevation and depression than would be practical in a turret and gives more room for loaders, plus it gives a more stable mount for a high-recoil weapon.

This isn't necessarily true. A properly designed turret plus gun breach can easily accommodate the same if not greater amount of elevation/depression than a hull mounted gun. Furthermore, while a hull mounted design makes for an easier position to reduce gun recoil due to the simplicity of a hull mounted design, a turreted gun can also be just as stable a platform.

However, the cost of a slightly simpler design (but not really, seeing as your design still has a turret anyways), you lose out on arguably the most important aspect of a tank; its ability to shoot in a 360 degree arc with its primary weapon.

The true advantage (and even by 40k fluff standards with the Thunderer and Destroyer) is the simplicity of the design making it cheap, and effective. Those vehicles though don't have any turret; your design does which negates the primary advantage of a hull mounted design. Seeing as you have a turret anyways, why not just stick the gun up there and put a hull mounted machine gun in the hull instead.

Fitting the battle cannon and another crewman into the turret while keeping the same degree of elevation would mean a much larger turret, I think. That changes the style of the tank into a much more modern look, with a turret half the size of the hull.

Also, I think that the lascannon is much better suited as a turret weapon; it doesn't need a loader or ammunition stored in the turret and doesn't recoil, meaning that the turret can be much smaller which means it can be better protected and turn more quickly. It's also a more suitable weapon for engaging targets on the move than a big slow gun like the battle cannon.

Looks very much like an M3 Lee Medium Tank.

Mounting a gun on the hull really doesn't mean that you get better elevation and depression. It is very possible for a turret mounted gun to have much better elevation and depression, it really just depends on the design of the tank. Place a turret right up at the front of a tank's chassis and it would be obstructed by the chassis, so you could have some insane depression and possible elevation depending on how high and spacious your turret is (allowing for the gun to swing straight up). You can't properly swing a hull-mounted weapon like the one shown straight up. Not that you would ever need such ridiculous elevation on a battle tank such as the Leman Russ.

I can definitely understand mounting a lascannon on the turret and trying to reduce the overall effect of recoil on the vehicle. Not that it is really necessary, as a well designed turret and tank in general won't suffer much from recoil, regardless of whether the gun is hull or turret mounted.

Honestly I think it looks like a Space Marine Vindicator with a turret. Which isn't a bad thing at all, as I would love to have a Razorback/Vindicator hybrid.

The other advantage of having the main weapon turret mounted, is that the major difference between the different LRs is the turret weapon, so for the sake of ease in a depot they just pop off the old turret and pop on the new one and voila, different LR

what you are looking at here is not a tank, but a tank destroyer. The 40k equivalent is the Thunderer, which is a russ chassis with a hull mounted demolisher cannon. Unfortunately, its not a tank in the military classification.

While a hull mounting DOES give better elevation, it severely hampers depression, which is much more useful to a tank. The breech of the gun would impact the roof of the tank pretty quickly.

The #1 problem with the russ is angled armor. Even in 1930 they realized that angled armor was better than flat armor. There is a reason almost EVERY WW2 tank has a sloped front and turret. Shells bounce a lot more if the armor is highly angled due to the equivalent quantity of armor they need to penetrate to enter the tank. The front of a russ is rated to 400mm of rolled steel via IA1. In the 1960s HEAT rounds could penetrate 400mm of armor. The M1A2 is thought to be equivalent to 1m of rolled steel.

Part of the problem with the Russ is the turret ring is much, much too small. Most tanks have the turret ring as most of the surface area of the top of the tank. That tiny turret ring limits the turret and breach size of the gun, which is why the russ looks so silly. If you are redesigning the tank, thats the first thing to change.

Change the turret style to that of the Conqueror
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Conqueror_FV214_tank.jpg
The turret allows for a much larger shell to be loaded due to the length of the turret. It does limit the depression you can get due to the breach length into the turret, but with 40k materials you could probably shorten the breach.

A couple more images, showing how the tank sizes up next to a russ and the crew layout...

Perfect Organism wrote:

Moving the main gun to the hull allows it to have a greater degree of elevation and depression than would be practical in a turret and gives more room for loaders, plus it gives a more stable mount for a high-recoil weapon.

First, rotation beats elevation in armored warfare. Second, the Leman Russ has an autoloader so no need to squeeze in an extra crew member just to load the main gun.

And I seriously advise to drop this silly early-WW2 theme on the design. Some uniqueness would be refreshing.

The russ does not have an autoloader. There is no way a mechanical autoloader would fit in the turret and still have room for the gunner.

Personally i think the M10 tank destroyer is the perfect tank to use for Russes. I use one as a russ in my DKOK army. Simply give it the M36's closed top and you have a tank that would not only function but do much, much better than the russ while maintaining a similar look.

I'm wondering if adding a second loader to the main gun would be a good idea. Since I'm stubbornly sticking to the hull-gun concept, I might well use the extra space that gives me and I imagine that battle-cannon shells are kind of pushing the limit for one guy to handle.

 zephoid wrote:
The russ does not have an autoloader. There is no way a mechanical autoloader would fit in the turret and still have room for the gunner.

It has. I can't find the picture that shows it, but it actually looks okay in the turret. And if you think about it, a loader would make much less sense because of the shape of the hull and the size of the turret.

Show me



From IA1
Where is the auto-loader in that?

Edit: Also, do you even know what auto-loading tanks look like? This is what a WW2 autoloader looks like

 zephoid wrote:
Show me

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h346/woody_sheriff/LemanRussInternal_zpsae835582.jpg

From IA1
Where is the auto-loader in that?

And where is the place for the loader?

 zephoid wrote:

Edit: Also, do you even know what auto-loading tanks look like? This is what a WW2 autoloader looks like

Who cares how a WW2 autoloader looks like? It's not like we had Panthers running around with lascannons or Shermans with huge plasma cannons during those times...

Oh, and here is the picture (from some old chapter approved article):

Whilst I dislike the "toy " appearance of the Leman Russ , I honestly don't think you have gone far enough to make it a better version.

Regardless of armour thickness , low silhouette tanks are hard to hit , check out all the historical hull mounted tanks , Swedish S tank and German Hetzer being extreme examples.

Once you get it low , never ever have a vertical surface and if the main gun must be in the hull , pull the driver in so the gun can traverse equally left and right. Gunners and loaders , if needed ( maybe an autoloader and a gunner/commander would be do-able with 40k optics and sensors ?) sit to the side of a weapon , not in line with it , because of recoil.

A lascannon turret on the roof is not a bad idea but could be a very small mini turret for the commander with a side mounted cannon or similar. What Games Workshop don't realise is that beneath a turret , in a big column all the way to the floor is all the turret mechanisms, crew member seats , gun breach and ready ammo, that all turn with the gun, so guns on top of guns with more guns would be a nightmare of engineering , not something supposedly "simple".

Other than that I applaud your decision to re-design the Leman Russ !!

 zephoid wrote:

Edit: Also, do you even know what auto-loading tanks look like? This is what a WW2 autoloader looks like

If by WWII, you mean post WWII auto loader.

The T-64, built in 63 had an autoloader as well, but looks like the T-54/T-62 more people are familiar with. Your pic is of the AMX 13 75/90/105, which was first constructed in the 50s, and the 90mm variant wasn't seen till after the T-64 was in production.

The designer of that picture obviously had no idea what hes talking about. There is no auto-loader in the picture nor is there room for one.



THAT is a 183mm auto-loader. The russ is a 200mm cannon IIRC. Also, that is a drum-based auto-loader where a carousel based system is MUCH larger. The T64 was considered extremely cramped due to the size of the auto-loading mechanic.


The picture is the 13-75 which was designed in 1946 but saw production in 1953. Its one of the first autoloaders to have a working system and one of the first to see production. I still consider 1946 WW2-era when considering tank designs.

Well, since everyone seems more keen on mounting the main gun in the turret, I tried bashing another design together.

Not happy with the hull, but I think that turret might have some potential.

 zephoid wrote:
The designer of that picture obviously had no idea what hes talking about. There is no auto-loader in the picture nor is there room for one.



THAT is a 183mm auto-loader. The russ is a 200mm cannon IIRC. Also, that is a drum-based auto-loader where a carousel based system is MUCH larger. The T64 was considered extremely cramped due to the size of the auto-loading mechanic.

Okay... No autoloader. Then tell me, how the hell does the loader put the shell into the gun breach? With gypsy magic?

by..... lifting it? Like they did with every tank before auto-loaders were invented? Yeah, wouldnt happen IRL due to the weight of the shell, but this is 40k. I cant find the source atm, but IIRC shells were 20-30 kilograms.

 zephoid wrote:
by..... lifting it? Like they did with every tank before auto-loaders were invented? Yeah, wouldnt happen IRL due to the weight of the shell, but this is 40k. I cant find the source atm, but IIRC shells were 20-30 kilograms.

So you can see a guy loading a gun (with a 200mm shell for crying out loud!) in that tiny hole that is the internal space of the Leman Russ' turret, but you can't imagine how a simple autoloader could fit there? Seriously ?

Perfect Organism wrote:
Well, since everyone seems more keen on mounting the main gun in the turret, I tried bashing another design together.

Not happy with the hull, but I think that turret might have some potential.

I personally still think you should go further , like a Predator turret on a Chimera. The Russ look is just wrong in my opinion !

@ OP, you are actually on the right direction with the turret design. I would caution about using a space between the hull and turret though, as that is normally a weak point for tanks.


Your turret is actually looking pretty close to that (Edit, thats a M103, you might want to look at more pictures to refine your design)

The forward mounted sponsors are a good idea, but it causes problems with where the controller sits. You have 3 people sitting essentially back to back, but who is driving the tank?


@AtoMaki.... i dont think you understand how big a "simple autoloader" is. Look at the size of the auto-loading mechanic on that FV 215 183 i just posted. There is no way that fits in the turret. People are much smaller than the machines needed to load shells. Also, do you REALLY think the imperium would use a machine where manual labor could be used? I mean, look at the rest of the tank. Auto-loaders are pretty complicated pieces of equipment and are far more complex than any other part on the Russ.
Go look at a T-54. There is a gunner and a loader in that, so yeah, im not seeing the problem.

 zephoid wrote:
by..... lifting it? Like they did with every tank before auto-loaders were invented? Yeah, wouldnt happen IRL due to the weight of the shell, but this is 40k. I cant find the source atm, but IIRC shells were 20-30 kilograms.

If this where EVER a option the loader would need to be a servitor or something like that, lifing a shell for a 200mm gun on your own is damned hard. And as for the user whom mnetioned the Swedish tank, well that thing never saw combat. And where desiged to figth on Swedish soil with Swedish tactics in the north of sweden where the land coverd in very dense forest. Put that tank out in the open where the enemy has better use of massed tanks and mobility and you end up with a smoking wreck. And beside, it never saw action.
So i join those whom say the LRBT should keep its rough looks, although some redesinges to the tracks and sponsons would not be a bad thing.

Pity this thread is about a new class of tank as I seriously think the Russ deserves a facelift. Rhino-based vehicles and Land Raiders got it. Meanwhile, IG players are stuck with the same old kit since the 1990s, with just a couple extra guns and a few cosmetic addons.

For a new tank, there's nothing limiting you. Redesigning the Russ, however, is a touchy issue. I for one believe the sponsons and rhomboidal tracks must stay, these are the "signature" visual traits of the Leman Russ... but what else? Longer body? Bigger turret? Wider tracks?

 Trondheim wrote:

 zephoid wrote:
by..... lifting it? Like they did with every tank before auto-loaders were invented? Yeah, wouldnt happen IRL due to the weight of the shell, but this is 40k. I cant find the source atm, but IIRC shells were 20-30 kilograms.

If this where EVER a option the loader would need to be a servitor or something like that, lifing a shell for a 200mm gun on your own is damned hard. And as for the user whom mnetioned the Swedish tank, well that thing never saw combat. And where desiged to figth on Swedish soil with Swedish tactics in the north of sweden where the land coverd in very dense forest. Put that tank out in the open where the enemy has better use of massed tanks and mobility and you end up with a smoking wreck. And beside, it never saw action.
So i join those whom say the LRBT should keep its rough looks, although some redesinges to the tracks and sponsons would not be a bad thing.

Hey mate , it was me that mentioned the S Tank , merely because the OP wanted a hull mounted main gun , as far as its practicality out of the ambush goes you are quite correct , its pants , but not my intension to describe its ability merely its design.

I believe the Russ needs a redesign too.

 zephoid wrote:

@AtoMaki.... i dont think you understand how big a "simple autoloader" is.

I know how big a simple autoloader is. Just look at the Stryker MGS. That small turret has an autolaoder and also stores 18 rounds of ammunition. And it is roughly half the size of the LR's turret.

Good point , Agent Tremolo , keep the rhomboid track shape , just lengthen and lower , the rest should be easy !!!!!!




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 zephoid wrote:

@AtoMaki.... i dont think you understand how big a "simple autoloader" is.

I know how big a simple autoloader is. Just look at the Stryker MGS. That small turret has an autolaoder and also stores 18 rounds of ammunition. And it is roughly half the size of the LR's turret.

Guys , come on , the OP wants to redesign the Leman Russ , not constantly argue about the size of autoloaders !

 Trondheim wrote:
And as for the user whom mnetioned the Swedish tank, well that thing never saw combat. And where desiged to figth on Swedish soil with Swedish tactics in the north of sweden where the land coverd in very dense forest. Put that tank out in the open where the enemy has better use of massed tanks and mobility and you end up with a smoking wreck. And beside, it never saw action.

If by Swedish, you mean French; assuming you're talking about the AMX 13/75. There have been no mentions of any Swedish tanks here so far. So no, that tank wasn't designed for very dense forests or for Swedish soil. It was designed following WWII (which is why I must disagree with Zephoid that its a WWII tank) where shells had higher penetration capabilities, where in the years following, many designers felt that there was no sufficient way to protect against these new shells.

The AMX series was therefore built with only enough armour to withstand small arms fire, engage the enemy rapidly and unload a dozen high velocity shells before retreating to safety for a reload.

 Big H wrote:

Guys , come on , the OP wants to redesign the Leman Russ , not constantly argue about the size of autoloaders !

It is actually somewhat important, because if we say that the Leman Russ has an autoloader, then the OP can trim down excessive space in the turret. It would be neat to have an "unmanned turret" on the Leman Russ - just a big gun on an armored platform like the Space Marine Hunter.

To be sure the Russ needs an extended hull. The thing just looks silly being so tall for such a small base. It seems pretty unstable on any type of significant slope and unnecessarily crowded inside. Lengthening and shortening the russ would go a long way into making it look better.

Guard really dont do the "unmanned" thing... at all. Russes are literally as simple as possible to be a tank and still function.

If the M1128's gun assembly is half the size of the russes turret, and it uses a 105, double the size of it and.... oh wait, now its more than the size of the russ's turret and there is no room for a gunner. Also far more complicated than anything else showcased in any vehicle in 40k.

Neither diagram shown has an auto-loader mechanic in it. This is getting off topic, so i will just conclude that since nothing so far has shown it has one and the tech to make one isnt something they would use for IG, it doesnt.