Tiger,..why cant I turn?

[stephen]

In place... Wittman was known for rotating the entire tank, thus keeping the thickest armor toward the target,... WE NEED THIS ABILITY.
Its a deffinate advantage over the M4, and not having the ability is a smack in the face,

0 radius turn, wtvr you call it, think this should be modeld...

[stroker71]

Not sure but our Tiger we have in game didn't have that.  I usually set up at a slight angle to keep the shells bouncing off we while in a multi tank engagement and kill those getting front/sides first.

[Beefcake]

Um, any tracked vehicle should be able to pivot in place. It's not like it's a special drive or anything, all the driver is doing is breaking 1 of the tracks while engaging the other. I mean WW2 era bulldozers could do this. 

[715]

I think what he's talking about is forward on one track and reverse on the other to spin in place; not something all tanks could do.  Braking one track and forward on the other isn't quite the same.  It would be nice to have both, as per each tanks capabilities (for example the T34 could only do the later).

[Cajunn]

I'm not sure and I could be wrong, but I seem to have read this somewhere: The first German tank that had the ability "single radius steering system" was the Panther, and it had to do with gearing and something like the higher the gear the larger the turn radios.

[moot]

Someone posted what looked like a legit documentation webpage that showed our Tiger as capable of it, IIRC.  Was a year ago at most.

[AWwrgwy]

How would you work it so you could still drive with a joystick?  Or from a gun position?

Think game controllers.  Maybe that's why you can't turn.


wrongway

[moot]

Any combination of the following:
One button to invert tracks.
One button to break left track, another for right track.
Axes for any or all of the above.

GVs don't have as many mappings as planes do. Nowhere near as many.. Look and see for yourself. We still have room to map individual track brakes and slave the turret to some axis or (pair of) button while in another position.  In fact, IIRC the GV key/controller mappings have "Left/Right brake" in the list, but they don't do anything.

[Ghosth]

Wasn't that easy Stephen.

First off I don't think any tank we have had the ability to put one track in forward, and the other in reverse.
If I'm wrong, please, show me the specifics and prove me wrong.  But do the bloody footwork. Don't expect me to do it for you.

So then what your left with, is low gear, max brake on one track and  full forward on the other.
Which if your on solid ground, slow, and careful happened. And it would get you a fairly tight turn. But if you were on softer ground you'd break a track. And then there you would sit till a repair crew got to you, or you got scared and boogey'd out on foot.

The side stresses on the track pins to do that kind of turn on other than paved or concrete is huge.
If you did it very often you'd start jumping tracks, etc.

Yes GV's could use some better control options for driving.
We should have the equivalent of a right and left brake lever, one in each hand.
A clutch for changing gear (left foot) throttle (right foot)

[SlapShot]

Any combination of the following:
One button to invert tracks.
One button to break left track, another for right track.
Axes for any or all of the above.

GVs don't have as many mappings as planes do. Nowhere near as many.. Look and see for yourself. We still have room to map individual track brakes and slave the turret to some axis or (pair of) button while in another position.  In fact, IIRC the GV key/controller mappings have "Left/Right brake" in the list, but they don't do anything.

What about ...

0 speed forward (0 stick deflection forward or backwards) ... stick deflection either right or left executes the "tank turn" ... amount of deflection indicates speed of the "tank turn".

[j500ss]

Well as someone who works on construction equipment for a living I can say this. Before the late 70's, I know of no bulldozer, or crawler loader that had the ability to counterrotate a track.  That is the term you are looking for. With a mechaincal drive system, you would have to had 2 transmissions in a tank, one for each track, or at the very least a final drive gearbox with a reverse spur gear.

Counterrotation is something that is easily accomplish with hydrostatic drive systems, all you have to do is reverse swash plate angle on the variable displacement pump. I'm certinaly no expert on tanks, but I would doubt they had the ability to counterrotate, or there would be very few that could anyways.  It would be more likely that what is being described is merely a " lock one track and perform a 180 turn".  If a T-34 could counterrotate, I would like to see how the did it, cause for the day it would be a great accomplishment, and I'm a bit of a gearhead as a squaddie ( and a above poster  ) likes to say  . So seeing how they did it would be freaking cool 

[715]

Like I said, the T34 cannot counterrotate.  It can disengage one track (clutch) and brake that track to turn into that direction.  I've read a post by someone who got to drive a restored T34.  He mentioned that just disengaging one track with the clutch was not enough, the T34 continued to plow pretty much straight forward.  He had to brake hard on that track to get it to turn.

[j500ss]

Like I said, the T34 cannot counterrotate.  It can disengage one track (clutch) and brake that track to turn into that direction.  I've read a post by someone who got to drive a restored T34.  He mentioned that just disengaging one track with the clutch was not enough, the T34 continued to plow pretty much straight forward.  He had to brake hard on that track to get it to turn.

     Simple misread on my part.

[RipChord929]

Its called "Pivotsteer" on gear selectors in modern US GV's
Not all vehicles have it.. Its actually quite rare...
Its really tough on transfer cases, and final drives...

I do believe Tiger had this feature...
Because I've seen it on film... No question!!!
If you look at the complete film of the Hitler
attended test session.. It shows the tiger
pivot steer in place... I noticed it because
it is unusual...

RC