Scale speed?
 

I did a search, didn't really find any information.

Was just watching a video that showed a 1:16 King Tiger doing some abusive runs to demonstrate a transmission units strength, and it seemed that the tank moved way too fast to be a correct scale speed.

With whats out there now, how are the speeds in terms of scale? I've got a HL Panzer III, and will have a StuG, both with metal gearboxes. Has anyone calculated how fast they SHOULD move, compared to what they do move? If my math is correct, a theoretical 25MPH vehicle speed, scaled to 1:16, would be 1.6MPH? Assuming few tanks have identical top speeds, the "universal" gearboxes that HL makes, would therefore be incorrect at best for all but one tank, unless the scale speed is close enough to correct for all the modeled tanks.

Not looking at battling or anything, but curious if anyone has already calculated this, or dealt with it? I'm thinking it would be more realistic/interesting when running at full throttle. Give me a better idea of what the tank would really be capable of.

I understand that the solution, if many run too fast, is re-gearing, new motors, or limiting max motor RPM.

RE: Scale speed?
 

Panzer III top speed 40kmh
Tiger I top speed 38kmh
Stug III 40kmh

just from them 3 they are very close, weight of tank will also change it a bit on how fast it can go, them speeds were the "on road" speed.

RE: Scale speed?
 

So for those three obviously the top speed on-road is going to be close enough the difference between won't matter. Now to figure out what the scale speed of the common modeled tanks run.

Cross country speeds for myself would be more accurate, I don't run mine on hard, flat surfaces much at all. Otherwise my model(s) would only have wheels.:D

RE: Scale speed?
 

Cross country is hard to tell because we dont know "how" offroad they did the test in, you could get a real tank and its top speed over bumpy terrain might be 10kmh but the specs say 20 :P.

and i guess easiest way to tell the speed of your tank, time how long it takes your tank to go 10 metres/10 foot off road then work it out via that

RE: Scale speed?
 

My one's max speed is around 5mph ... which is similar to the full scaled speed 5mph x 4 = 20mph .. the REAL KT's best cruise speed is around 22mph.

RE: Scale speed?
 

Being realistic, in any tank in a combat zone, a speed of 15-20 mph max was pretty much the norm, with convoy speeds actually slower. With many tanks, like Tigers and KTs, that was top out, unless one got onto a straight, slight downhill grade. Even a Sherman, rolling on a downhill grade can pick up some pretty good speed. A few tanks like the Stuarts, M-41 and M-18 TD could boogy out faster, but they were designed for it. Early T-34s had a reputation of being fast, albeit they took two men to shift and Russians were not after tank longevity but superrior numbers to overrun the Germans.:eek:

Cross country in soft ground or loose gravel and keeping your eyes on the woodlines, keeping your infantry with you etc, speeds were normally closer to 5-10. Short spurts of 30+ or so were possible on some tanks with better engines, but higher speeds tended to put way too much stress on the engine and in a combat environment, having an engine getting tummy cramps in a delicate moment is really not cool. [:'(]

Generally a road speed of 20mph and cross country of about 10 would put you in a good actual speed for about any WW II tank.
Now if you take the Abrams, that's a totally different world[X(] M-41 could click along at 40 and top out at 45 mph. [8D]

RE: Scale speed?
 

So maybe a decent compromise overall for the older tanks would be a max speed on the order of 20MPH...so that would be around 1.3MPH.

Anyone got a tank handy that they can scale time for distance? KPH would work too.

RE: Scale speed?
 

er well i just timed my tank doing 1metre and it calculated out to roughly 1.4mph (over carpet)

edit my tiger is stock

another edit, that works out to 36kph only 2kph off the real tank speed so its close enough not to be noticed

RE: Scale speed?
 

Well, while a small number, I suppose that 1.4MPH vs 1.25 (I rounded to 1.3) is a decent amount, but not sure I'd even see that difference. I'm actually pretty impressed then, the scale speeds for those three tanks therefore are pretty close.

RE: Scale speed?
 

Yea its close enough also to amke ti easy just do 1.25 x 16 ie 20 then 20mph to kph in google gives 32 so its fairly close

btw my tiger is using the white cap HL motors as there is a differance between the white cap and black cap

RE: Scale speed?
 

Short discussion from Willy on scale speed with some reference speeds:

[link=http://www.customrcmodels.com/id454.htm]http://www.customrcmodels.com/id454.htm[/link]

RE: Scale speed?
 

Have to bear in mind that the books listing top speed of a vehicle are relating to official military test results and generally under ideal conditions. In the field with weather, road, track type and additional loads effecting the vehicle, the actual field speeds are considerably slower. The Pershing is supposed to run at 25 mph, bit with its weak Ford engine, if you ran it over 20 for any length of time, it would be sitting off the road blowing steam out the radiator and most likely changing a set of 16 fan belts. The Shermans with radials could click along at 35 when they got wound up and running full out, but given top speed was normally around 25, depending on the particular model. The M-46 was generally given 30 mph, but 20-25 was a good speed, when all 12 cylinders were cooking.

RE: Scale speed?
 

Dont forget the sprocket acts as a final drive too... (affecting speed between tanks slightly)