Military Models

I've always wanted to make a Lego tank. I started out with very very few pieces. I basically had the Giant Robot technic set, a small freestyle bucket, a 8440 Formula Flash, and a Mountain Rambler that I bought especially for the treads. As I started building, it quickly dawned on me that the rubber mountain rambler treads were woefully inadequate for my needs. So I ordered two packages of wide chain links from Dacta and proceeded to build. I wanted to make the tank walls really thick, to give the vehicle more bulk and to give it a sense of having armor. I was running seriously low on yellow bricks, so I built a double wall construction using a 1 stud thin shell of white bricks on the inside, and a 1 stud shell of yellow bricks as the outer skin. I used 2xn plates to anchor the two shells together at periodic intervals. This kept the structure fairly sound.

I really wanted to have a true suspension system, but given the 8 stud width of the tank body, this became unfeasible. About all I could do was put in a rear differential for the drive-train. Notable features are the somewhat clever use of the two-piece steering arm element of the Mountain Rambler for the mini turret. Putting a black connector in one end creates the impression of a nice little mini turret that you can change the angle of. I also used the one-piece steering arm as an ornamental suspension piece.

The rotation of the turret, was actually a much harder problem than I originally anticipated. The gears didn't seem to fit right in the tight space I had, compounded by the loss of space to the differential right beneath my first gear. As a result, the gear ratio is rather higher than I would like. One revolution of the crank in the back of the vehicle results in about a 5 degree turn of the turret. This is probably realistic, though, because it allows great precision of the turning of the main gun.

I never was particularly happy with the turret and main gun barrel. I only get about 20 degrees of vertical elevation of the main gun. I also would like to make the turret less blocky. Perhaps some day I will revisit this design. Not bad for a first effort.

Photos were taken with an Epson digital camera (no flash) and processed with Adobe Photoshop (to add backgrounds, and remove hands holding model, etc.) All images were shot against a white background (visible in Right Side View, and Left Side #2).

NOTE: These images are best viewed in Millions of colors.

Front View If you look carefully, you can see the driver's viewport just above the minigun.	Left Side View Note the treadguard on this side to prevent damage to the treads from enemy fire.	Back View The back features a wheel which rotates the turret from side to side.
Top View Note the ladder on the right side	Right Side View This side has the treadguard removed in order to show off the (decorative) suspension element	Turret Inner Workings The turret is mounted on a technic turntable and is driven by a 8 tooth small gear connected to a crown gear. You can see the rear axle differential under the crown gear.
Back View #2 In this view, you can see the flash light and oil can attached to the maintenance rack.	Left Side View #2 This picture shows the construction of the tread shield from two black "wing" plates	Bottom View You can see the rear differential and the underside of the turret rotation mechanism.
Cockpit You can see the minifig driver and a bit of the interior. Note the white inner shell.	Right Side View #2 Note the ornamental suspension piece.