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Published: 2015-08-20 23:14:51 +0000 UTC; Views: 18357; Favourites: 219; Downloads: 166
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Description
Finally, I managed to finish these drawings, which had lain unfinished on my hard drive since 2011.These are vehicles for the Marbanian side of my webcomic Inner Space. They will have a semi-active role in the comic appearing a few times but for the most part they will be used as background props.
This image is a counterpart to the one depicting Tambrian Tanks .
A larger image can be found here
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The Marbanian Cl-18 is an older model light tank that is still in use with town militias and border guards because of it's excellent armament and armour. Since it was an early vehicle, there are a number of design features that do not appear in more modern designs, such as a hull made out of cast sections bolted together and exposed tracks.
Since the original design asked this to be a close support "infantry tank", it was thought that protection was preferable to speed -
Armour for the vehicle is 32 hatte (43 mm) and the total vehicle weight is 6 tons. It is equipped with a 80 hp engine which provides a top speed of 20 km/h and a range of 130 km.
The suspension is torsion bar with small roadwheels, the transmission is at the back and the track geometry requires the presence of a return roller set in the middle.
The armament is made out of a 60 ht (80 mm) recoilless rifle placed to the right of in an asymmetric cast turret, with a 6 ht machinegun to the left capable of being operated independently.
The gun can be uses in either AT role or anti-personnel role, firing about 6 rounds per minute and being able to be reloaded under armour.
Against tanks it shoots a spin stabilised hollow charge AT round which can defeat 280 mm of armour up to an effective range of 400m.
Against infantry it can fire a HE round with an effective range against personnel in the open of 1,100 m or a short range "cannister" round effective against infantry up to a range of 300m.
Also, because these tanks went out of service with the Marbanian military before the adoption of medium green as the standard colour for armour and artillery equipment, they maintain their earlier livery of tan-brown.
The tank is somewhat inspired by the French Renault R35 and the gun was based on the Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle .
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The I.R.M.H. IR-0321 is the main light tank of the Marbanian Army. It was designed as an updated version of the Cl-18, but with vastly improved mobility.
Unlike it's predecessor, the IR-0321 is made out of 25 ht (33.3 mm) welded steel plate, with a rolled plate turret and weighs 11.5 tons. The 400 hp engine is at the back and so is the transmission. The suspension is torsion bar like on the Cl-18, but the roadwheels are large diameter pressed steel, to improve mobility and there is no need for return rollers.
Because of the excellent suspension and powerful engine the tank has a top speed of 52km/h and maximum range is 200 km.
The weaponry is roughly similar to that of the Cl-18 - an improved 60 ht (80 mm) recoilless rifle placed to the right of the turret and a 6 ht machine gun in a separate ball mount to the left.
The recoilless rifle uses the same ammunition as the earlier version, but improvements in it's mounting and aiming have extended the effective AT range to 700m.
One odd old fashioned design feature of this tank is the driver's position which protrudes from the front plate and uses observation blocks rather than periscopes and has a two door hatch on the roof.
The crew consists of four - driver, commander sitting in the back of the turret under the cupola, gunner sitting at the right front of the turret next to the gun and the radioman sitting at front left of the turret which also operates the machine gun.
The real-life inspiration for this vehicle are the Czech Panzer 38(t) and the Soviet BT series of fast tanks .
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The I.R.M.H. IR-0303 and IR-0803 are both pretty similar vehicles in the sense that both are observation vehicles armed only with a machine gun, but they differ in the individual optical and radio equipment.
The 0303 is a command tank for a tank regiment / battalion equipped with an additional radio with a long range loop antenna in a turret bustle and a panoramic periscope. For additional close range protection there are two firing ports for automatic weapons situated on the turret sides.
Crew is four people - driver, unit commander, observer and radioman / machinegunner.
The unit commander operates the long range radio.
The 0803 is an artillery observation vehicle equipped with two radio sets with one of which is located in a turret bustle and a stereoscopic periscope. It has two antennas - a loop and a frame one around the top of the turret.
Crew is four people - driver, commander / artillery observer and two radiomen, one of which also doubles as the machinegunner.
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The I.R.M.H. IR-0352 is an open topped light tank destroyer equipped with a lightweight 80 ht (106mm) smoothbore recoilless gun capable of firing either kinetic energy penetrator or HEAT rounds in an anti tank role as well as HE rounds for use against soft targets.
The kinetic pentrator rounds are of the armour-piercing fin-stabilized discarding-sabot type and are capable of defeating 150 mm of armour up to a range of 1,350 m.
The HEAT rounds are capable of defeating 400 mm of armour, but due to their higher drag and the gun's relatively low muzzle velocity of 388 m/s their effective range is much lower, of only 800m
The HE projectiles can be used up to a range of 4,500 meters in indirect fire mode or 1,500 meters in direct fire mode but their use is limited to stationary or slow moving targets.
To improve accuracy the commander is provided with stereoscopic rangefinder in an armoured cowling.
Unfortunately, ammunition supply is limited to only 14 rounds.
For close defence a 6ht machinegun on a tripod can be set on the roof over the cannon in special brackets.
There are four crewmen - driver, commander, gunner and loader.
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The I.R.M.H. IR-0341 is a self propelled 100 ht (133.3 mm) mortar. The rounds are rocket-assisted, which means that special vents are provided in the sides of the gun tube to vent the gasses. The front of the mortar hangs from a bracket fixed to the roof of the vehicle and the rear rests on the floor. The breech swings upward to allow the spent casing to be removed and a new round to be placed in the chamber.
The mortar tube itself is rifled for precision. The mortar is able to fire several types of munitions - HE, shrapnel and smoke /chemical rounds. Maximum range is 8,140 m and the mortar can fire 4-5 rounds per minute.
On board ammo reserves are only 12 rounds, so the vehicle must work in conjunction with a dedicated ammunition carrier based on the same chassis - the I.R.M.H. IR-0400, which can carry 52 rounds - 20 internally and 32 in a drop sides open topped container.
Crew for the self propelled mortar is made out of four people - driver, commander / gunner (sitting to the right of the gun and provided with scissors binoculars for direct aiming), assistant gunner and loader, while the ammo carriers has a driver and two assistants.
The mortar was inspired by the 380 mm Raketen-Werfer 61 L/5.4 of the Sturmtiger.
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Finally, a pair of anti-aircraft vehicles - The I.R.M.H. IR-7204 and IR-7205. Both are armed with the same 15 hatte (20mm) recoilless autocannon, but the first one mounts a single gun in modiffied open top turret based on that of the light tank, while the second is an improved version with two guns in a completely redesigned turret.
The cannons of both versions have the same technical specifications - a cyclic rate of fire between 280–450 rpm (120–180 rpm practical due to the feed system), a maximum range of about 2,200 m and a muzzle velocity of 900 m/s. Both are belt fed and each gun on the twin mounts has an ammo allocation of 1,500 rounds per gun, while the single mount vehicle carries 2,000 rounds.
Since both feed mechanisms are complex and space consuming, the crews of both vehicles are made out of only two people - a driver and a commander / gunner.
Related content
Comments: 21
RRaillery [2015-08-22 00:13:07 +0000 UTC]
Dayum! Each of these are great! You are a tank design genius.
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TedShatner10 [2015-08-21 22:58:00 +0000 UTC]
I can see the IR-0321 light to medium tank (that's like a cross between the S39, BT-7, and T-34) weathering the conflict until the end despite the earlier variants becoming more outmoded by heavy tanks and the improvement of infantry AT gear, with later versions wielding longer cannons housed in a different turret, with enhanced frontal sloped armour, upgraded engine, and armoured skirts around the flanks (like later versions of the Panzer IV).
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cthelmax [2015-08-21 17:41:16 +0000 UTC]
How exactly does the recoiless rifle on the CL-18 light tank elevate? I looks like it should be fixed to the turret front and rear.
As an additional point - is this related to how it's reloaded, since the venturi appears to be mounted flush against the rear turret wall
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wingsofwrath In reply to cthelmax [2015-08-21 21:12:01 +0000 UTC]
Heh. Glad you asked me that!
I actually worked out the design mechanically before I drew it - the gun is hinged at the front where it meets the armour plate, while the venturi nozzle itself is fixed to the turret back. The breech opens laterally inside the turret, like on a trap-door rifle, and behind it there is a flexible metal tube which links the end of the gun with the venturi nozzle. Since the depression and elevation are -5 and +9 degrees respectively, the design works, but is far from ideal, which is shy they changed it on the IR-0321.
On the latter the gun is completely outside of the armour and set on a circular plate which covers a circular hole in the turret with the diameter just larger than the length of the round, thus allowing the gun to be relaoded at any elevation.
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cthelmax In reply to wingsofwrath [2015-08-22 07:56:05 +0000 UTC]
Ahhh, I was wondering if the venturi wasn't rigidly attached to the barrel.
Given the EXTREMELY nasty nature of any accident involving a rupture of the flexible metal tube, I'd imagine the crews were happy to see the system changed.
I guess cleaning the tube must be a bit of a pig as well, which wouldn't have endeared it to the crews either...
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wingsofwrath In reply to cthelmax [2015-08-24 09:10:05 +0000 UTC]
Oddly, enough, there never was such a case, probably because they thought of the possibility, so the tube itself was massively over-engineered.
The shift to a different system was widely applauded, though.
Not such a difficult job, the tube itself is actually quite short,about 15cm long and about the same in diameter and only consists of three articulated segments. You clean it from the venturi side and you can get a brush all the way into the breech.
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cthelmax In reply to wingsofwrath [2015-08-24 21:54:48 +0000 UTC]
Ahhh, I was thinking of something more along the lines of a bellows joint, which would have presented a multitude of little crevices to accumulate residue and then run the risk of splitting open the tube.
I'm assuming that you've seen this which I guess is the closest thing to a real-world equivalent of the IR-0321 turret, albeit with an external 3-round autoloader?
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Arianod [2015-08-21 07:09:11 +0000 UTC]
OK, I'm really curious about the weird-looking extensions on those recoilless autocannon. How do they work? Are they based on any RL designs?
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wingsofwrath In reply to Arianod [2015-08-21 20:51:03 +0000 UTC]
Those are Venturi nozzles to vent some of the gas backwards to negate most of the recoil (some is still needed to cycle the mechanism). The design is a somewhat more stylized version of the real-life Rheinmetall Maschinenkanone 115.
There are two of them set at a slight angle because on the original pedestal mounted version of the gun the operator would have been behind them. Here's an early drawing showing on e - despite all the concept art that went on since then I still consider it somewhat "canon", because it's supposed to be taking place waaay before the time of the comic - something like twenty years before, hence the more old-fashioned uniforms.
EDIT: I had forgotten because I did the design 5 years ago, but I based it more closely on the 8.8cm version called Düsen-Kanonen or „Düka 88", rather on the MK 115.
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Arianod In reply to wingsofwrath [2015-08-23 17:02:27 +0000 UTC]
So they really are a real-life thing I shouldn't have doubted it. I'm guessing that most real AA guns take a different approach, though, as I've never seen those things on a contemporary or historical example, and the one you linked to is an aircraft gun
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wingsofwrath In reply to Arianod [2015-08-24 09:06:07 +0000 UTC]
Well, it's a needlessly complex system.
Sure, you need that in an aircraft, where the force of the recoil works against your thrust and can either throw off your aim or, if it's big enough, can cause a stall, but, since most AA guns sit on a solid base anyway- either the ground or a honking great vehicle- the idea of making those recoilless is pointless.
On the other hand, you may have noticed the Marbanian design trend of making EVERYTHING recoilless, wherever we're talking huge naval guns or light tank guns...
In this case, it is somewhat justified, however, because the gun itself first appeared for use on fighters and was then developed into an AA weapon as well.
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Arianod In reply to wingsofwrath [2015-08-24 10:07:02 +0000 UTC]
Good for them ^^ Recoil is so last year...
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wingsofwrath In reply to Hungryclone [2015-08-24 09:25:01 +0000 UTC]
Ah. If you mean the Tank Destroyer, I made a mistake - that one is a smoothbore rather than a rifle, but I messed it up when I made the text. It's fixed now.
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Hungryclone In reply to wingsofwrath [2015-08-27 17:35:26 +0000 UTC]
Oh no I meant the tan coloured "light tank." Been trying to figure out how to build a squad of three.
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TedShatner10 [2015-08-20 23:31:37 +0000 UTC]
The IR-0321 Light Tank is perhaps the best balanced design for an interwar type tank out of both fictional tank forces.
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wingsofwrath In reply to TedShatner10 [2015-08-24 09:25:35 +0000 UTC]
Glad you think so! I like that design myself.
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TedShatner10 In reply to wingsofwrath [2015-08-24 23:23:49 +0000 UTC]
It's like a better version of the BT-7 crossed with the French S39. A good backbone medium tank for a 1930s era tank force.
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wingsofwrath In reply to Texas-Red-Wolf [2015-08-24 09:39:31 +0000 UTC]
Unfortunately, the vehicle is too narrow to make into a Hetzer like design - there isn't enough space to fit the gun alongside the driver. Besides, the driver sits in the middle anyway. I may draw another version inspired by the Marder III or Marder III M, with a casemate further back, but we'll see about that.
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