Update:
I started this project more as a visual study in blending walker design elements; I envisioned the walker as a bipedal AT-AT, trading the troop and cargo capacity of the larger walker for slightly higher linear speed, better acceleration, lower cost and more (if not necessarily individually more powerful) weapons for engaging targets by direct fire. Essentially a complementary vehicle to the AT-AT's assault role - flank security and fire support, "enforcer".
Starglider wrote:Detailing is reasonable but...
Glad you like the detailing.
Starglider wrote:Detailing is reasonable but...
The ground track looks too wide for operations in urban or forested terrain, and I'm not sure what the point of a walker (particularly an unstable bipedal one) that can't do that is. This is an inherent problem with high walkers like that - improving stability by widening the track decreases maneuverability. This thing is still fairly unstable in the pitch axis and has a very high profile.
The width of the walker scaled to the AT-AT should be comparable - only a few meters greater if that, with the height of that test shot coming in around chin level to an AT-AT, but I'm still working on the final scaling. In any event, AT-ATs hardly seem to be designed for close quarters operations either, and if this is to be deployed in similar environments/situations, I don't think its size is necessarily a huge drawback.
Height and profile considerations are identical to that of the AT-AT. Yes, you are an easier target as a higher vehicle, but simultaneously you have greater range with the line-of-sight weapons that seem to dominate the medium range star wars battlespace, better resistance to mines, as well as make a psychological statement to your enemy. As a walker that will advance rapidly to an area and proceed to attempt to dominate it in concert with infantry-carrying vehicles such as an AT-AT, height defnitely carries with it certain advantages.
The pitch stability problem is one that any bipedal walking system needs to deal with. In the final form, I imagine a largish turret assembly on the back will balance out the weight cockpit and forward weapons, with the hips acting as the pivot, similar to the way the tail of a theropod balances out its torso and large head, only being much more compact lengthwise of course.
That said, the suspension system of this walker can yield a pretty stable firing platform - the hip joints on both legs are mounted on a series of telescoping joints visible here:
These enable a lot of vertical give to each of the walker's legs, allowing (as I see it) the walker to keep its main hull level - and guns on the target, even without the independent elevation available to each gun system.
Anyway, how does it turn?
How does an AT-AT or an AT-ST turn? Small adjustments in step, *maybe* slight rotation at the hip. The ankle of either of those vehicles has no horizontal rotation available either. I'm thinking that the head of this walker will be able to turn slightly side to side to compensate, though obviously not as much as the AT-AT with its much longer neck, or the AT-ST which can rotate its entire (much smaller and lighter) cabin around the drive assembly. The head is currently a temporary placeholder, more for sizing and placement, without a proper finished connection to the hull. Also the primary weapon will be a dorsal turret or barbette assembly, allowing engagement of targets oblique to the walker's direction of movement.
Actually all of the walkers in the star wars universe seem to be conspicuously lacking in turning ability relative to their speed for their size. Some walkers make up for it by traversing their whole weapons flatform (AT-ST), others by having independently-tracking weapons (AT-AP, AT-TE). This walker I envision as combining a dorsal turret and some small traverse in its head-mounted medium weapons to engage targets.
Starglider wrote:Assuming you've kept the armour weight down enough to make the ground pressure usably low...
The ground pressure should be similar to that of an AT-AT, even with equivalent armor. This walker is bipedal, and if it stood as high as an AT-AT it would have roughly half of the AT-AT hull volume, and by proportion, the footpads are actually larger on this walker than those of the AT-AT.
Starglider wrote: ...the recoil from those heavy cannons is going to be a bitch. It looks like they've got muzzle brakes but no recoil compensation. You might be better off putting in some big rear gas vents and making them recoilless - or at least some recoil travel.
The medium weapons can travel in their own assemblies along the indented grooves underneath the cockpit of the walker, similar to the system used by the AT-AT for dealing with the recoil of its heavy chin cannons. The primary weapon, which I currently envision to be a turret-mounted system on the back, will indeed likely be a recoil-less rifle style weapon.