Just a note on battery types.

While I agree Lipo is the way of the future, NiMH works wonderfully too.

And for NiCd, I never found the 'fussy' issues mentioned except memory effect if not completely cycled.

One consideration to battery choice is capacity is really not critical, as the nature of tank simulation/battling is sporatic movement, not constant like racing.

A 50-60% duty cycle is more realistic for tank driving, where the motor RPM is fairly constant (because of the gear ratio).

My experience in the past with NiCd for instance, is 30 minutes on a 1500 pack, battling, not bad for a NiCd.