Utgardian IG (DIY Halo-style vehicles - Flyer)

[Nostromo]

It has been a while.
After a Vindicator and a Land Raider (see my gallery for those) i started new long-term project.
The idea is a new design for tanks based on Ben Wottons design studies for a Halo scorpion tank.
It will be basically the same chassis for anything that is Chimera- or Leman Russ based. The original Scorpion design will eventually be built as a Macharius.
Progress is extremely slow, because time is sparse and everything is scratch built. Including all the weapons.
ok, you are waiting for photos...
(Click them for larger versions in the B&C gallery)

First, the heavy weapons for hull, Chimera turrets and sponsons.
So far i have heavy bolters (turned out quite small), heavy flamers, lascannons ans multilasers.

An early stage of the Chimera turret with multilaser, HKM and heavy stubber. The second set of the latter two is intended for a Leman Russ. I should have made the stubber replaceable... Welle, in the next one.

An early stage of the generic chassis

Progress on the chassis with Leman Russ turret and punisher cannon. Magntised, hull mounted Heavy Bolter is equiped.

...and how it looks today with a couple of added details and a few more Details missing.

Edited July 23, 2019 by Nostromo

[Pearson73]

Great work so far, love me a scratchbuild.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

I like the design, especially its modularity. The ability to replace the turret with a passenger compartment, and use the resulting vehicle as a transport, means I'll rarely lack the kind of tanks I'll need in a coming battle. Edited January 18, 2018 by Bjorn Firewalker

[Nostromo]

Thanks for the encouragement so far.

I have a few more fotos of the last steps.

 

In the mean time,

• the first 200 rivets have been placed (alas, it looks rather untidy due to messing with the wrong glue)
• Grips and ladder steps have been added
• smoke launchers are prepared, but not yet glued to the hull
• the sponsons are 80% finished
• hatches on the firepoints in the rear hull

On the photos, it looks in some parts more messy than it actually is. I soaked some of the cardboard with superglue to make it possible to sand it (that works REALLY good and hardens it).

First, the rivets that are almost finished on the right side (no rivets on the left side yet).

 

This is shot of what will turn into wheels for the next tank. Those will be the 2nd generation wheels, not the simple ones on this tank.

 

Next, three shots of a sponson equipped with a magnetised heavy flamer in two positions and with the removed sponson for tank versions without need of sponsons

 

And last, the smoke launchers. There is still a rivet missing on each of the lids of each tube, but besides that, they are done.

Edited January 22, 2018 by Nostromo

[Nostromo]

The prototype for the LR/Chimera chassis is almost done, but i will surely find more details to tinker with.

It is for example still missing stowage.

The driver and gunner hatch are far from what i want them to look.

 

But for the moment, here is a teaser on the artillery prototype:

 

... and a shot of the current state without the heavy weapons.

 

next i intend to make the Chimera turret useable.

 

In parallel i think i will start with the artillery chassis, but it will be days until there will be something recognizable of that. As mentioned, it will be for the most part the same chassis with just minor modifications. The artillery turret is based on the PZH-2000, so clearly Armageddon pattern

Edited January 23, 2018 by Nostromo

[Nostromo]

The Chimera turret just does not work... it is too small even for a remote controlled turret.

 

 The artillery version made some progress - by now, it is not hard any more to see what it is.

For this version, i have modified the back of the chassis.

The Earthshaker cannon is removeable. I will also make a medusa cannon.

 

little surprise... the cannon is way too heavy, i need much additional weight in the back of the turret

Edited February 5, 2018 by Nostromo

[Nostromo]

almost no visible progress - though, i am working on an alternative wheel design.

The prototype looks promising:

But you can imagine that making one of those wheels takes some time. On average, about 15-20 minutes. And i need 24 or 26 per tank...

3 done, 17 50% done... that will take some time.

Here are some shots for an impression of size and the details on the Leman Russ. Still, not finished.

 

[Nostromo]

such a slow progress...

i am still doing wheels and track links for the Basilisk - and since it is a very long, monotonous task, a couple of different things.

The basilisk has rivets now (way more than 300... that much regarding escaping a monotonous task...) and i have added extra armour to the front of both tanks.

That armour turned out quite nice - it was just supposed to cover something i messed up, but now i will do it for all tanks.

The basilisk turret is closed now... and i miscalculated the size, so i changed the template again and needed to close a few gaps. The problem arose from material strength (yes, even with paper...) and the cardboard i glued to the inside to add stability. At the moment i am working on the hatch on the turret. This version has the round hatch i use on the front hull and on the leman russ turret. In short... i am not happy with it and i drew a totally different kind in the template for the next one.

The trouble is now, that this hatch is an exception and a break in the design.

Something else i will eventually change are the smoke launchers.

So,enough complaining and whining.

 

photos:

[Nostromo]

The basilisk has finished wheels and tracks. Ladders and door handles as well.

I just did not take photos of those yet.

 

But i made some progress on the revised chimera turret.

The progress is limited to drawing - but i tried FreeCAD again (everything else i did with Illustrator), so i have this intermediate status to show:

 

The rectangular hole in the right part is where the magnetised heavy weapon will sit.

The cylinder on the left indicates where eventually stubber and HK will be added.

The center part will get smoke launchers and a sensor array.

[Nostromo]

looks like i have reached the point where each progress takes much more time while producing only small effects.

So, you will need to look carefully for the changes.

Most of the changes i have written about in the previous post.

Todays work produced more hinges on doors, improved hatches and ... tools.

Looks much better with tracks

The chimera turret will take a while longer. It was quite easy to unfold the .slt in pepakura - but the result was hardly useable. But pepakura also allows to produce a vector file that i am now revising in illustrator again. So there was not really time saved - but i have an impressive 3d model and i assume this workflow produces less errors. My biggest issue are shapes like the leman russ turret.

[Nostromo]

WIP-Shot of stowage:

 

A size comparism shot with my DIY Keiler-Pattern Vindicator:

(it was the first vehicle with original measures i could find - i was too lazy to search for actual GW manufactured vehicles)

 

Finally, detail shots of stowage in the railings. I hope photos will get better after painting.

 

 

 

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The tank looks great, but considering its size, will it "count as" a Leman Russ, a Macharius heavy tank, or an outright Baneblade?

[Nostromo]

This one will count as a LemanRuss - but the chassis is also the base for all chimera based vehicles.
At the moment I am also designing a counts-as Macharius. That one is longer and wider and should match the original Macharius dimensions pretty closely.
Though... „designing“ means in this case „copying and only slightly modifying the original“
... where „original“ means the movie Halo Scorpion, not the Macharius.

So, this is what the counts-as-Macharius is going to look like:

 

Even if a Macharius has no transport capability, i will keep the entry points at the side. For the Leman Russ, this is where i placed the sponsons. However, this is what i am struggling with at the moment - finding another spot to place the Macharius sponsons without the Landraider-dilemma (an exit point right in front of the weapon muzzles).

Changes for transforming this into a Macharius more or less concentrate on making the tank somewhat wider (because of the double-stubber at the front), a modification of the section behind&above the doors for the sponsons (so at least one firepoint on each side will disappear) and of course the turret - though, i want to retain as much as possible from the general idea.

Edited February 26, 2018 by Nostromo

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Even if a Macharius has no transport capability, i will keep the entry points at the side. For the Leman Russ, this is where i placed the sponsons. However, this is what i am struggling with at the moment - finding another spot to place the Macharius sponsons without the Landraider-dilemma (an exit point right in front of the weapon muzzles).

 

Changes for transforming this into a Macharius more or less concentrate on making the tank somewhat wider (because of the double-stubber at the front), a modification of the section behind&above the doors for the sponsons (so at least one firepoint on each side will disappear) and of course the turret - though, i want to retain as much as possible from the general idea.

Idea 1: A recessed gun turret directly above the side door, like those on the Repulsor.

 

2: Side doors that swing open towards the vehicle's bow or stern, allowing you to mount the guns in a ball turret in the doors themselves.

 

3: Have two doors on each side. Either or both doors may be replaced with weapons sponsons, as on a Land Raider.

[Nostromo]

Hey... Input from somebody else

Thanks!

 

ok, lets check...

1) "Repulsor": that door sections resembles my one quite closely. However, it would require to make the whole structure a little higher - at least 6mm. Some more shifting to gain a few mms... Hm... i will check how my scratch-built heavy flamers will fit there. actually, i kind of like the idea to mount the weapons over the doors. Until now i just di not want to make the whole thing any higher and wanted to retain the door housing. I think i will give it a try.

Thinking a bit more about it, i think i can get a few mms by playing with the angle of the door - basically, it would point more downwards. Actually, that may make sense since it still hovers above ground, allowing passengers do drop out of it with the tracks providing cover. So maybe i will not need to make it all that much higher.

 

2) "Wing doors" with ball turrets. hm... no. i intended to either retain the original doors that swing DOWN or to make roll-doors (what is the term for those?)

 

3) twin doors: definitely no space for that - with the quad-tracks that would require the whole struckture to be stretched by 3 cm - and that looks rather goofy (i made a quick photoshop-mockup). No, REALLY not

 

So, either directly above the doors or above/behind.

I need to remake the door section anyway.

[Nostromo]

Todays status includes a new test build of the chimera turret and a few Macharius parts.

At this stage, a few scale issues are apparent.

 

The chimera turret does not really look bad... but especially with the mounted weapon, it looks too large.

I think about downsizing the arm by 25% and downsizing the weapon casing by about 50%.

What do you think?

 

The next photos show an VERY early stage of the first test build of some of the "counts-as-Macharius"-components.

I make the first test builds with regular printing paper, not the heavy i use for the final builds and no internal reinforcements.

 

However, it is enough to get an impression of the size compared to the "counts-as-LemanRuss" in the background (which is 1-2 cm longer than a chimera)

I am not really sure about the size of the doors. I am still playing with the angles and i think i will be able to place the sponson weapons over the doors. But... the doors look a bit small. Enough to get through with just enough width and sufficient height if you watch your head. My brain says, the door is large enough.

[Nostromo]

The "chimera"-turret finally looks like i want it to - and now also has a size that i am happy with:

 

 

The counts-as-macharius makes progress as well - but only on my computer since i am still working on the templates.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Is the turret non-hull-penetrating, i.e., its components don't occupy space in the passenger compartment?

[Nostromo]

Yes - that‘s one of the reasons for the large casing of the main gun (ammo storage/ energy cells) and an ammo casing on the stubber (ok, that one is not visible on the photos.

Classical remote turret as used on most modern light tanks.

Fluffwise this is relevant because the technological level is based on earth 150 years in the future.

Another reason is that i use the same chassis for chimera and Leman Russ, so i need an element to distinguish the two.

[Nostromo]

Long drawing and testing pause.

unfortunately, the steps since my last post produced nothing really worth showing.

I started the first sketches for the counts-as-tauros buggy.

Small vehicles with many angles are much harder than i expected, but for the moment i have a mockup of some half-finished parts of the larger counts-as-macharius tank.

 

You get an impression of the size compared to the chimera-style tank. On the first photo the two tanks line up at the back, so you see that the macharius is much longer - as it should be, of course.

 

[Nostromo]

Two steps ahead, one step back.

I made good progress with the front and the sides - and then i realized that the whole right side was slightly bent. Just a very little bit due to material strength that i did not consider in construction. Mere 0.25 mm. But if that results in an angle, that makes a significant difference on a length of 20 cm.

Which i realised after gluing all parts together. So i cut the whole right side apart again and am rebuilding it at the moment.

But the twin-stubber is already in place.

 

This is a detail shot of the side doors. 90% finished, but almost everything still needs details, which will be added at the end.

 

Did i already write about revising vents?

In the first two tanks i just "engraved" the vents in the paper - which did not look actually bad, but just does not keep up with the rest.

Detail shot of the old approach:

So now, i build the vents in boxes - which is massively more time consuming. And a mistake of placement of a quarter mm is VERY visible. Damn. 

But i will leave it this way - i made about 7 test builds so far and at least it does not look totally crappy any more. Sad, that the large centerpiece does not look as good as i hoped, but later improvements will show when i build the next tanks. 

 

[Naryn]

Looking great! That attention to detail that makes you rebuild is the same thing that makes this project so fascinating to watch. Keep up the good work!

[Nostromo]

Thanks!

I look forward to how it turns out in the end as well, since even with sketches in advance, the design changes during building to a certain degree.

With this tank being the intended centerpiece (for the near future), i intend to increase the level of detail by a level or two. The previous two tanks have been prototypes for their classes and test builds for techniques.

It will not end with the Macharius.

[CommodusXIII]

Fantastic work! I'll look forward to following along with your progress. :)

[Nostromo]

What a great difference even a 1/3 finished turret makes.

Now it even looks like "something".

The rear section looks rather weird. And that's just for avoiding the term "ggofy"... i need to do something with the area over the rear track guards.

 

But the whole thing at least resembles a Macharius - or more likely the hybrid between Macharius and Scorpion that is is supposed to be.

 

Still, a long way to go.

What do you say?