Jump to content

Land Raider design flaw? Side doors and sponsons.


Recommended Posts

 

Looks like you could put them easily on the front tho. ^^

Anybody remember the old playstation game twisted metal? Stick em on the front a relive the days of glorious vehicular combat!

Shout out for Interstate '76 for covering muscle cars in machine guns, and because it had a button which just made your character quote poetry.

I think the Land Raider has suffered as a design for decades due to being based on a eighties sci fi inspired design, it has always been an odd beast. It used to be an either or, either you use it to tank hunt or as a dedicated transport so it used to sit at the back or go charging in. Obviously the Crusader changed this.

 

While the lascannon design is flawed, one way of looking at it is the general idea is that the troops are expected to disembark via the assault ramp at the front. The side hatch isn't overly practical given that the passengers are going to be leaving single file but you could head canon it by having the machine spirit override firing as Astartes leave the hatch. If the Raider is close enough for the troops inside to get out then I think the crew are much more likely to revert to the heavy bolters rather than the longer range lascannon as supporting fire because of the limitations of the sponson fire arcs.

 

Now getting back to the Crusader or Redeemer patterns having the sponsons at the back would make far less sense.

 

The assault ramp dropping to expose the main reactor/engine is another story though...

The mini assembler did it wrong and mounted them at the back.

 

They were designed for the front and the art is for the front.

 

In 3rd edition it was better to have the doors at the front to give you extra inches to disembark. Likewise was modelling the front door open which gave an extra 1/4 inch deployment.

The mini assembler did it wrong and mounted them at the back.

 

They were designed for the front and the art is for the front.

 

 

This is false. They are clearly designed to go in either front or back positions.

 

There are multiple artworks for both positions.

In 3rd edition it was better to have the doors at the front to give you extra inches to disembark. Likewise was modelling the front door open which gave an extra 1/4 inch deployment.

 

More so than this - in earlier Editions, disembarking was limited to 2" from the door.  If you have a full squad in a Land Raider, it was sometimes difficult to get everyone placed around the model and still maintain unit coherency.  Especially if you're driving through dense terrain or near enemy models.  Placing all of the exits near the front helped manage this bubble.

No 40k tank is practical. They're all too tall with the wrong kind of guns for their job.

 

 

The Chimera is actually pretty decent so is the Rhino, heck so is the Razorback... Or do you mean full on battle tank?

Well if we're going to talk about real life efficiency in this debate then sponsons shouldn't even be a thing, right? :wink:

 

Sponsons are a real thing, they just fell out of favor during WW2 because increased armour meant vehicles were better with one very good gun rather than multiple guns and that gun was better off in a turret.

 

Multiple turrets was tried and turned out to be a terrible idea, so its not impossible sponsons could come back if someone in the real world invented a light but powerful gun and an engine that could move them about on a single vehicle at a decent speed (which is a matter of efficiency I suppose).

 

Its the weight that would make a real life land raider impossible not the actual implausibility of the sponsons.

 

 

I think the Land Raider has suffered as a design for decades due to being based on a eighties sci fi inspired design, it has always been an odd beast. It used to be an either or, either you use it to tank hunt or as a dedicated transport so it used to sit at the back or go charging in. Obviously the Crusader changed this.

 

Its based on a ww1 tank.

 

Well if we're going to talk about real life efficiency in this debate then sponsons shouldn't even be a thing, right? :wink:

 

Sponsons are a real thing, they just fell out of favor during WW2 because increased armour meant vehicles were better with one very good gun rather than multiple guns and that gun was better off in a turret.

 

In their historical incarnation (a manned gun with an armored shield) they were also a glaring weakness in the side armor of a tank that could be easily exploited and that would hold true with anything from the IGuard. The remote controlled/Machine Spirit sponsons of the Astartes tanks being mounted outside the vehicle would get around that weakness but it's still an inefficient weapon setup for a supposedly elite force on the cutting edge of Imperium technology. With space magic, you can easily shape the fluff to say that a large, boxy, assault vehicle always gets the job done with its supposed 95mm (3.75 inches!) of armor protecting it from the worst weapons their enemies bring to bear, but it would be a terrible liability in a reality because physics. 

The efficacy of the Raider's armor depends on more than just thickness, but also the composition and quality of the plate. An inch of mild steel is inferior to an inch of Chobham, for instance, and we don't have any hard figures on heat dissipation or hardness for ceramite or adamantium.

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.