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Build Your Own Sherman Tank
absolut.evil writes "OK, so admittedly it is only 1/5th scale, but still pretty cool.. especially if you're a kid. The thing comes complete with working suspension, meticulously built wooden tank treads and X-Arcade controls. Check out the pics and construction timeline."
I can hear the shrieks of the gun control activists now!
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
Anyone els think the kid in the tank looks like he's got to take a leak?
What they failed to mention was that the Sherman tank was built AROUND the small child ...
Kindergarten is going to be rough for that little one.
Man it looks like a Estes(sp?) model rocket motor would fit right in the canon. Look out neighbourhood cats!
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No wonder Bush is looking for every last reason to attack Iraq...
Hey that big war budget HAS to be spent doing something "constructive" right?
That kid is going to outgrow that tank in 1 week. He shoulda made the tank slightly bigger. maybe a 1:3 model instead of 1:5.
It is todays UF Link of the Day.
Teenagers these days don't have as much sex as they want each other to think they do.
is that the kid will outgrow it in a year and dad will have to think up a new project, maybe a bigger tank or an airplane. "But honey, it's for the kid!"
its elian gonzalez. see what the little punk has gotten into in cuba? it is only a matter of time until he invades again.
Cool.
Now I want to sell the instructions to Build your own mine field to this guy's neigbors.
Where was cool stuff like this when I was a kid, or at least when I was small enough to fit inside one of these. I was impressed that the treads were make out of wood, I would've guessed that you would've need an expensive trip too the hardware store to do treads.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
Studies have proven that it's NATURAL for kids to play with toy guns and the like. Children who do are not any more prone to shooting someone later in life than kids who merely play with dolls. I'm tired of pop psychologists/Oprah Winfrey telling us how to raise children/live our lives. I'm so pissed I'm going outside to shoot something!!!
A tank is not a weapon of mass destruction.
Visit clips , click on "A brief history of America". THINK!
...would a 1/3rd scale model be large enought for a grown man? Or should I try for a 1/2 scale?
I mean, this would be one hell of a toy to scare the neightbours with... *smiles*
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
7 year old child with 1/5th scale tank conquers Iraqi military through sheer cuteness.
Any one else think of that Christmas Story movie where they keep telling the kid "You'll put your eye out with that thing!" referring to the Red Ryder BB gun?
Forget equipping the cannon w/ live fire action... all he needs is for some kid to put his eye up real close to that barrel to look inside; then have the driver accidentally hit forward and jam the barrel into his skull.
I'd also be a bit leery about having those tank treds last very long... wood isn't designed to do that sort of thing... and certainly not after a few seasons of hot/cold-wet/dry...
And how about fire control? Motor's get hot and wood burns... small fire could start inside the tank and the kid might not even know...
Plus my mom never even let me have a power wheels!
According tp Netcraft:
www.gizmology.net
Linux Apache/1.3.26 (Unix)
Linux Apache/1.3.19 (Unix)
Linux Apache/1.3.4 (Unix)
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Is that it was made for 300 million dollars as a part of some Homeland Security/NSF grant. Tom Ridge: "We need to arm and armor our children. Otherwise the terrorists have won!"
What is music when you despise all sound?
As with all presents for children, he's probably been in the tank for a total of 5 mins,,, spending more time in some cardboard boxes that were in the garage.
Just imagine the looks on your neighbors faces when you rumble into the midst of their barbecue in a Panzer, and paste the beer cooler with your 37mm potato cannon. That'll teach 'em to drink imported beer on the 4th of July.
The response from my Guinness keg launcher promises to teach your 5-year-old a valuable lesson on the perils of unilateralism.
Tell that to the people from Tieneman Square.
Fuck, if you had a slingshot and a pile of rocks, it would be a WOMD, but only if you were in Iraq.
Come on jerk-off, the whole fucking thing is relative. Why else would GW get his knickers in a knot over a 'Drone Plane' that was made out of balsa wood, weed whacker motors and duct tape, and controlled by a man on the ground at MOST 5 miles away? It's a fucking hobby plane that millions of americans have built for fun, but in Iraq, it's a restricted weapon!
At first it looked interesting. Then he starts running into problem after problem and I'm thinking, Does he want a job at General Dynamics? Because he is doing a ton of engineering. He put some real thought into that thing. I can't blame him at all for the $10-$25 fee for instructions.
Of course he will soon find that the instructions are equally as hard to make as the tank...
Pictures from the childhood of Davros.
"Father" of the Daleks.
Cheers,
Jonathan
What's super cool (or super crazy) is that the guy who started Cisco has a real one that he runs around the woods near his house. Read this in an angel investor article somewhere. Heard he even knocked one of his teeth out, trying to run over trees.
Trees one, Cisco nothing.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Well, he's got my vote for coolest dad of the year!
Envy my 5 digit Slashdot User ID!
Which countries was this not popular in?
Dear World,
Yeah, I play "guns" all the time as a kid, and have never wanted to buy a real one, nor have I ever wanted to use one for anything. Man, those were the days!
Today's kids play with real guns, because their parents were to damn scared of hurting their feelings by saying no and setting real rules!
-Slashdot Junky
.
Landfill Mining Co.
Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
and it looks like an awful lot of hours went into it. Unfortunately, in less than one year the boy will have grown too big to fit inside anymore.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Who knows he may even grow up to be an engineer.
I worked in prisons for quite a few years and believe me, kids with dads that spend this kind of time with them don't typically grow up to be dangerous and violent.
Well, there's a little difference between a plastic toy gun and a tank, don't you think? But on the other hand, the kid probably won't ever come into the situation to actually buy a tank. But I really wonder what he'll do once the cannon's finished...
yeah, and how about new year's firework? The various things you can use baseball bats for? and ice hockey? He'll probably destroy a lot more people by playing ice hockey than by driving around in a wooden tank his dad built him. There is no devil, it's just God when He's drunk.
...why use X-Arcade controls? The only part used was the Joystick, which can be bought directly from Happ (the manufacturer) for much cheaper.
Both the plastic guns I had and this tank simulate actual real life devices, so they are the same in my mind. They are both intended for pretending in play.
As a kid, I learned that real guns were not for play and when used can result in serious injury and death. With this, I CHOOSE to not use them in a hazardous way. It's all about the choices we make in life.
-Slashdot Junky
.
Landfill Mining Co.
Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
Giving a kid a model of a vehicle that inflicted death and mayhem on the Nazis is a Good Thing. Teaching that freedom comes at a great price is a Good Thing.
When I was a kid, I would have KILLED for something like this. We actually did end up building vehicles as we got older - using salvaged lawnmower engines, generally. To this day, my dad bugs me about the disassembled engine in his garage, which I left there 15 years ago.
The big problem was, none of us had access to a welder. The fact that we couldn't actually weld would have proven no obstacle. Eventually, we took to building boats instead, and ended up in a series of harrowing pellet gun wars with the other gang of boat-building kids.
Ah, life in a small town, eh?
i suggest that you get permabanned from /. for wasting bandwith
I just hope his son doesn't break a rib trying to put the track back on if it were to slip off.
From the article:
The power source in this model is two 12v 75Ah deep-cycle Autocraft batteries driving two 24v 1/5 hp electric gear motors (see the bottom of this page for more on these motors). emphasis mine
Anyone else read this "antiaircraft batteries?"
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The tank treads are apparently modeled after his watch band... as seen here... my question: couldn't he find a better picture than him picking up some like crap or something? Green sand, my ass... (Okay, bad expression).
Karma: pi (Mostly due to circular reasoning in posts).
North Coast makes their Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout which makes me laugh and chuckle at the thought of ever drinking Guiness again unless I had to. Don't even get me started about the Old Stock Ale which is devine. Every day beers like Red Seal and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale are also usually in the fridge.
No, I'm afraid imports just can't cut it. So until I take a trip to Europe to see what they have for themselves I am sticking with good ole American beer.
He's into detailed restoration, like an auto collector; he doesn't operate the tanks much.
botparts is this the first /.ing of a link from within an article?
/.ing
Or has it happened before... If it has I bet it never hapened with the main article withstanding the
moo.
and a display and you could have an battlezone simulator. :)
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Damn, wrong topic. Note to self: read more, click less.
For great justice!!!
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Damn, that's a cool project.. The kid looks just like one of my friend's sons.. And he'd definately be the type to drive it around the neighborhood, and terrorize anything he could with a pneumatic cannon.. :)
:) From the sounds of it, these would be about as expensive as the motor and batteries that he used.. Of course, I have no idea what he'd need to use to make the drive reverse.. Using either track in forward is easy. putting one in reverse to spin the tank would take an extra transmission piece..
:) Imagine chasing each other around a yard with potato's in the cannon.. Muhahahaaaaaa..
My only real suggestion would have been to make at least the drivetrain and suspension out of metal.. Ya, it'd take a bit of extra work, and may need to invest in some new tools (but possibly not), but it would have definately been worth it..
Personally, if I had the space and time, I would have gone for something a bit bigger. Maybe 1:2 scale, and probably used metal instead of wood.
I've seen quite a few 50cc motorcycles and mopeds with automatic clutches and one speed, that can get someone my size on a small frame going about 30mph. A pair of 50cc motorcycle engine/transmission combo's would make a pretty cool tank that wouldn't be too loud, and still get like 40mpg.
Oh, I got it.. Put the drive in a slot. If it's in one position, it moves forward. If it's in the other, it hits the other side of the inside of the tracks, and pushes back.. That would only require a solinoid, like the electric locks in a car use.
Tee-hee..
I need to move into a house with space, so I can build one for myself.. Hehe..
I guess it's a good thing this guy isn't my neighbor.. We'd probably have a full fledged tank built by now (minus armour to save weight), with a working pneumatic gun..
I really should have applied for junkyard wars.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Heineken is not German.
Chris
Oh. My. God.
That is hilarious. I just scared my roommate by spontaneously falling out of my chair laughing!
(For those who don't get it, read up on the relative armor thickness of various tanks in WWII.)
Regards,
Ross
On one hand a great little motorised tank and on the other an empty can. Which is more fun?
You can stop beung a dickhead now.
Surely there would be enough interest to come up with specs for mock armor warfare equipment based on various (as yet undefined) paintball guns. My proposal follows: For the "medium" tank, a 25 mm gas propelled smoothbore round with a 50/35 yard m/h (medium/heavy) maximum kill range , 75/50 yard m/h disable range, 60 rounds maximum at 12 rounds per minute. For the "heavy" tank, a 35 mm gas propelled sabot round with a 75/50 yard m/h maximum kill range and 100/75 yard m/h disable range, 40 rounds max at 8 rounds per minute. Medium tank max speed of 5 mph with the heavy tank at 3 mph. All vehicle skins minimum of .188 6061-t6, otherwise, no restrictions. The rounds themselves would be composed of the external shell, a primary color and a internal pellet with a secondary color. On a disable impact, the external shell would fracture, creating a primary color impact on the armor. On a kill impact, the primary shell would fracture, and the secondary pellet would fracture creating a kill impact color on the armor. To kill a vehicle, it would be necessary to either to get a kill shot or to disable both carriage and gun with independent impacts. Like the old arcade tank game, the tanks movements would be bounded, though opposing forces could communicate via a "secure" (I joke!) wifi network. 2 on 2 and 4 on 4 would be about right, and there's lots of desert here in Nevada to play.
like two panzershrecks, three max.
Last Halloween, my wife wanted to dress our 6 month old son as a fox. She got the costume and everything, and it was a cute little outfit. I started wondering what I could contribute...
Inspiration struck, and I built this:
http://hallert.net/images/marcustank1-med.jpg
http://hallert.net/images/marcustank2-med.jpg
It's mounted on caster wheels and has a handle on the back that I used to push it down the street.
Now I wonder if anyone can guess what I was trying for..... ?
just big enough so that he outgrows it in SIX WEEKS.
Did he forget how fast kids grow?
I can just see this kid refusing to eat and crying his eyes out in June.
To make your son into a murderous Nazi tank commander for Halloween?
They didn't play with weapons... they went to church.. remember.
That isn't how I remember it.
www.foxhome.com/soundofmusic/
The kid's got his own Sherman Tank. Kindergarten's going to rough for the other kids.
Miko O'Sullivan
Poor kid will be blown to shreds the moment the neighbor's kid comes out with his new panther or tiger.
In France, instead of playing with guns, all the little boys practice waving white sheets, making doo-doo in their pants, and running screaming like a girl instead.
It's seemed to work out pretty well for them, they've been playing these games for the last 185 years.
-Styopa
Cause at the rate they grow that boy'll be way too big to play in that thing in about six months. He better get to work on a backup kid if he wants his toy to see any real action.
-dameron
If it wasn't for you I would be speaking Vietnamese, Iraqi-style Arabic, Panamanian Spanish, or that horrible patois they speak in Grenada.
"I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq"
-- Paul Wolfowitz, 7/21/2003
Had a pair of 1/4 scale 88mm AA guns pointed right down the street. His son didn't make it past the cul de sac.
If I ever build my child a tank, it will be something other than the M4 Sherman. That tank should have never been put in service. Prior to the Normandy invasion in 1944, GEN George S. Patton made the decision to concentrate production on the M4 Sherman instead of the M26 Pershing. The Pershing, according to Patton, was much too heavy. Patton, being a cavalry man, saw tanks as tools of the infantry. Tanks were to be used in conjunction with assaults by foot soldiers and were not intended to fight other tanks. Patton's choice of the lighter, faster Sherman turned out to be a huge mistake. The high-velocity guns of the German Tiger and Panther tanks penetrated the Shermans like a fork through a slice of bread. According to Belton Y. Cooper (whose book you should read...more on that in a bit), the Army began the Normandy campaign with 232 M4 tanks. In eleven months of service, 648 were completely destroyed and 700 were knocked out but later prepared. This comes out to roughly 580% losses in less than a year. These incredible losses resulted in the deaths of thousands of highly (and expensively) trained tank crew members.
As if the M4's crappy armor wasn't bad enough, the Army equipped it with rotary aircraft engines, which it apparently had in surplus. These engines constantly fouled spark plugs (of which they had around 18, if I am remembering Cooper's book correctly). The engines did not like to idle at low RPMs and this created constant problems when travelling in convoys. On top of that, the tanks would let out an extremely un-tactical backfire when they were started, which often drew German artillery fire upon their positions. The M4s also had very narrow tracks. Your son's model tank looks to be fairly accurate as far as the dimensions of the tracks. When these narrow tracks encountered freshly-plowed farmland, they got stuck and it took incredible effort to free them.
But wait, it gets even worse... The M4's main gun (75mm or 76mm, depending) was almost useless when up against German armor. When that gun hit the hardened armor (rolled, if my memory serves me) of the Tiger tanks, it merely bounced off, leaving a scratch or pockmark on the surface.
So, all you Slashdotters...if you're going to build your kid a tank, do them a favor and build them an M26!
-Chris
PS - I got most of this information from reading Belton Y. Cooper's incredible book, "Death Traps", which follows the 3rd Armored Divison ("Spearhead") from Normandy to the heart of Germany. I'm not sure if it is still available--it was out-of-print for a while...
The M4 Sherman tank is especially not a weapon of mass destruction. The M4's crappy medium velocity 76mm gun was no match for the German Panther and Tiger tanks. See the comment that I just posted for more info.
Chris
I said they don't usually *grow up* to be violent.
I base that on my experience and conversations with actual violent people.
Exactly what did you base your amazing insight on?
disagree == dipshit ???
Sounds like a rough attitude. Maybe you played with too many guns as a child. ;)
Do not give up hope. There is a lot of room in this world for people that think like that. Actually that attitude sadly seems to be the majority view from what I can tell.
Ever wonder why the UN does not work? Hmmmm....
Have a good one.
. . . Someone thinks of putting a spud gun on that one and rant around the neighbourhood. . .
This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for higher security.
So what makes this coffin on wheels news for nerds, or stuff that matters?
I could understand ir if it utilised chobham platelet armour, super nailguns and motorised sharks, but as it stands, its shit.
Tanks rock, but this story is a night-fighting shit-kicker.
I mean, who would be scared of a little boy in a tank? Priests?
This looks like a great project, dispite what anyone thinks. I would suggest that the turret is built a bit higher in case the tank rolls over, the kids head is not injured. I wish I had as much time as this guy does.
I can just see it now, the kids, being sick of having to drag their gear can just build a panzer, complete with a potato gun!
Live for the present, learn from the past, and dream of the future!
...will this little beast fit on either the backyard rollercoaster or the backyard monorail track?
Who knows he may even grow up to be an engineer.
If he grows up to be a software engineer, the same project will likely end up looking something like this
"The trick will be to fit all the necessary components into the available space between my son's nose and the front of the turret!" I hope he REALLY gets that breech to be solid. If the projectile gets jammed and the breech breaks, the child is going to get a heck of a punch in the nose!
Sometimes the "writing on the wall" is blood spatter...
This looks like a great project, dispite what anyone thinks. I would suggest that the turret is built a bit higher in case the tank rolls over, the kids head is not injured. I wish I had as much time as this guy does.
;)
Good idea-- but one would need a good vision solution in that case... If you think that tank could be dangerous, try limiting its vision
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
My friend and I here in California are actually talking about this....the problem arises in that where does one acquire such amunition? I do believe no one makes such a specialized round as yet.