Lets not hi-jack this thread, its about the next step in group competition. There have been some constructive ideas presented both for airsoft and IR. James, I like yo ur airsoft battle ideas and would participate in such a fun sounding event but I am primarily an IR battler because it is also alot of fun without the legal headaches. In our small battles we usually don't find ourselves standing over our tanks and we have a defined border we don't walk into ( the battlefield ), it takes skill to aim your tank from different angles and its rewarding to hear the crash of a hit..and maybe a brew-up if your lucky. In my experience and from what I read these IR tanks aren't little prima donnas, they are run into walls, tipped over into ditches, when your in competition and the next move means life or death you drive like the devil himself is on your heels, paint job and detail parts be damned !

Wow! lots of heated dicussions going on, each with their own ideals and wants. All correct in their own way and needs. The initial thread, ithought, was for an idea to bring the rules & regs together to allow everyone to enjoy the hobby without being tied to no-no's and can't-dos. Lets continue on this track and maybe some heads can get together and accomplish something.

As for cost of mini cams etc, I got 2 off Ebay for under $20 ea and the mini monitor from Radio Shack about $60 some odd, which I also use for other things....so not bad. (used the minicam in my 1;16 Stuart in the Vets Day parade last weekend....the only WW II tank in the parade....all on one battery and I was in an M-2 Bradley.)

I had thought about the 2 man RC crew a long tome ago for being realistic....driver and turret crew would be very realistic and also require coordination, making the hobby even more fun. With the idea of 8 frequencies, tank battles rarely involve more that a half dozen tanks, normally....(OK Kursk and DAK battles had a couple more)[>:]..so for realism, that would be very realistic.

I now have 31 models used for history and demos, 1 Tamiya Sherman, 8 Cent 21, (Shermans and Pz IVs') 6 half tracks (1;18) , 3 WSN T-34s and 12 HL tanks. Not into IR battles as yet but most of models are run for demo and a little fun on the grass. With the exception of a bad lemon I got, the HLs are doing OK, so I have no major gripe with HL and price is OK. Models not available and felt the need for, I converted and they look and run OK. I would like to run a platoon of my tanks together, but this has only happened a couple times at open displays. When I do this, at least I have US against German and never have to continually ask, is he on my side or theirs? Another big bug on the rules game.[&o] Although enemy tanks were captured and used, the markings were obvious and that should be entered into the rules books. Not really kosher to have a Pershings, Shermans and Tigers in the same platoon. [:@]

Lets cut back on the bashing and see if we can get some heads together and accomplish something for the benefit of all. This RC tank hobby is expanding and now is the time to try to get things unified.

Hi Bullfrog,

I'm not bashing Tamiya tanks, I want one! I'll send you a PM about the motor issue. I'll happily look over and repair your tank. You pay the shipping both ways or next time your down in South Florida and $20 for the board and I'll fix it and make it run again. Gun included and it won't shoot 80fps either!

KSOC: I've seen your Avatar! hehehe My intent was to say it's more difficult to drive and have situational awareness through a camera then from above the battlefield. 2 cameras per tank would be really cool and is easily doable but we'd then need at least 16 different frequencies for the cameras.

It looks like paintball battling will not be as popular so I'll refrain from posting further on this topic. Paintball battlefields are all over the country and I'm sure they have figured a way to make the insurance weenies happy. In my kneck of the woods I have permission from local farmers to use their fields during the off season and it's as simple as a bunch of guys showing up, doing battle and going home, no BS.

This is where the problems start, 3 ideas 3 directions. We all need to get on the same sheet of music and go from there. Start the national club 1st and set the tank battles in classes.

1] sportsman or beginer class [ both IR and Shooting tanks]

2] Shooting tanks

3] IR tanks

Running gear should be stock as far as motors, turret rotation ect. Remember your never going to make all tankers happy. but you've got to start some where. May I recomend we start with a poll or something to see how many intrested people we have.


Just a thought Greg

Don't forget to add in SCAT, DAK, Rolling Thunder and TAA.

If you really are trying to come up with rules to grow the hobby, then those rules are going to need to scale up from 4 tanks to 20 tanks battling at one time. I'd love to be flinging live ammo around the battlefield, but a lot of municipalities have BB Gun/Airsoft regulations that you would run up against. So again, if you are trying to come up with a Nationwide set of rules, this is a real concern. I'd love to see a national set of rules, but after the issues RCAN has had, I think you are going to have a tough time.

Here are some photos about some of the issues that came up. 1) typical lineup on Allies side 2) Captured armor with proper ID - though we have been know to put blue tape on the aerial in at the end of the day. 3) Battlefield shot - while you can move around, there are still a lot of places you can't stand over your tank.

Thanks for the offer.The motors are 380'sor maybe 400's just from a different manufacturer.The gun never did work correctly.Again not bashing here but I got what I wanted a compairison of the two tanks side by side. I really want ro convert this with the other systems out there(IR) But I've never gotten a good answer for the different people making them. I also wanted to see if I could upgrade the HL tank but I don't think it will work.
Now there are two groups each with your own adjenda- the BB style and the IR.RCACN came up with some rules but our group in town just don't fit what they do. I do think they will be changing in the near future.There was a group called Rolling Thunder that was more forgiving that also used the battlefiled in Danville.
Maybe someone could contact the AMA and see if there is something they can do to help both of our groups?

The ROLLING THUNDER events are a combination of the groups M.A.C.V., A.C.E. and E.T.O. to form a set of rules of which all tankers with the Tamiya Battle System can abide by.


Jeff

I would love to have a truely national event. To start, there really needs to be a permanant space (preferably indoors) that could host/sponsor such an event on a regular basis.

Competions could vary from actual battles to some kind of obstacle course to target accuracy competitions that could satisfy IR, BB or even non-shooting tanks. Fortunately the IR systems really do not need much in the way of rules as they fire, hit and kill by its own programming, just rules maintaining the integrity of the optical/electronic operation would be required.

Painball and BB would require referee or judges to verify hits or determine KO tanks.

The basic idea that would make competitions work is to be inclusive of as many tanks as possible and make a variety of competitions based on whether they are IR, BB or non-firing.

It is true that Danville has a regular event and I have attended a few times, however, it is very specific about what tanks can compete and is not generally open to a wide range of tanks.

this isnt a tamiya bashing question, but doesnt it get kinda boring just driving around with nobody to ir battle with? with my bulldog I love to just lob rounds out at lawn decorations or do some long distance target shooting. I guess this is a matter of opinion but to me shooting actual rounds will always be the best.

I think a better way is to get 2 , 2 channel transmitters and 2 receivers per tank. I have tried that with a leopard in my club and it was a very fun way to get someone to start with the hobby. Not sure if 2 transmitters operating one receiver will have any issues as I have yet to tried that. In my days of flfing, even turning on the transmitter with the same frequency as someone else will cause teh model to freeze up.

I think in order to make what you described work, one will have to have both radios to be exactly the same make and configuration but I do not think it is easy to disable any channels in a transmitter.

Thus it will be easier to make a tank with 2 operators running off 2 seperate transmitters on 2 different frequencies and 2 receivers. Of course only the more spacious tanks can put 2 receivers or you can always use park flying receivers that are tiny.

I was talking HL, very easy to disable one stick on a HL, one stick on the other. All have common controls. My method does not apply to all, and is the "easiest" for Heng Long tanks.

Hi Sarge,

What about the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System or MILES, used by the United States Armed Forces and other armed forces around the world for training purposes? As you know, it uses lasers to simulate actual battle for soldiers and vehicles.

Would seem the Tamiya system and the US Army are of the same mind set.

Run a Tamiya TBU Sherman with all your HLs, the Tamiya kits are fun to build and take way less than a couple of weeks to assemble.

Or get a used one cheap off ebay and rebuild it in a reverse engineering way so you learn what is going on inside (not much) so you can maintain it.

Think about applying your tactical knowledge on a Tamiya battle field.

In my first SCAT battle, I drove my Porsche Turret semi full option King Tiger onto the field, stopped, rotate the turret, depressed the main gun, parked and faked dead.

When the club presidents Sherman roared by I came back to life in the confusion of combat and nailed his Allied tail. Of course all the SCAT guys thought that was cheating, but hey that's what the lousy krauts did back then.

Next time out I had wired a separate ESC to the turret so the tank was a quick draw turret rotating gun fighter and that really got them up side down. It is all good fun.

But I will say SCAT battles seem closer to paint ball slug fests than WWII tank engagements, so there is something going on for everyone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKu1xgD-OEI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqxsRR0jnNQ


John

Lol thats why they used the knock-knock tactic - see a disabled german tank, shoot the crap out of it anyway!

True, but I think most of the SCAT guys slept though US History and Poly Sci in HS and college and missed all that good but dull stuff.

The MILES system would be nice and might be able to switch from one tank to another, but I never used it and don't really know much about it.[] We had tank vs tank combat using 90mm blanks. [8D]Fun thing was to chop down a tree a bit under 90mm, saw projectiles about a foot long and stick them in the heavy grease in the blank. Lots of fun seeing splinters and sawdust splash off the "enemy" tank. 'course we did occassionally loose a water can or shoot out a headlight... At least EVERYONE knew to keep buttoned up and not to peek out for a 'look-see". [>:] To keep "enemy" infantry off our backs, we'd empty our full machine gun brass bags into the chamber, slam home a blank and clear the foliage off a few trees for a hundred feet or so.
I personally think tank combat games are a lot more fun in a 1;1 scale tank....but then; cleaning them up takes a lot longer.[&o]

I like the idea about an obstacle course and shooting accuracy range combined. For HL shooters, that would be a lot of fun and would require a lot of skill in both driving and turret control. A two man crew would make this type course very interesting and lean very heavy on teamwork.

I tried my luck at Danville with Dana letting me use his KT. First time out using Dana's "backward" or left handed controls, I got three hits on a Pershing in the first 5 minutes. IR is OK, but to me, there's something missing in the realism area. I'll try it again with my Tam Sherman, when my schedule lets me get away.

Note to self........ next tank battle, everyone vs pcomm1.....

My rule has always been, if it doubt, shoot it!

Well, since most everyone was on to me and my lumbering King Tiger by last March, I sold it to a good guy in Glendale.