I mean no disservice at all Tom. All I've made is a statement of fact. I'm sure that some tank battles are just as competitive as race events, but speeding around a scale village to get position to fire, then speeding for cover all at unrealistic speeds etc will satisfy battlers but not those looking for realism. If you make it realistic, then the competitive goals move. Nothing wrong with that - we all do our hobby differently.
But if you want your tank to traverse grass smoothly it's a doddle. Firstly, you build your own lower hull. You use 540 sized motors, still brushed if you wish, but quality ones you can take apart to clean, change the advance etc. I'd use a 80turn armature, as l do in my Tamiya trucks, to get masses on smooth low end torque so that you have, together with quality ESCs, the ability to crawl away from a standstill on any surface or gradient, and then fit, say, 3 speed gearboxes with high quality gears and ball races throughout.
Now, is that all possible? Yes. Do components exist on the market to do it? Mostly yes, though you'll need to buy from many different manufacturers and scratch build or modify parts. Is this practical? Here comes the catch. For a top spec single motor you'll pay more than you would for a new HL Tiger! For a good programmable electronic speed controller and software maybe more than a Taigen Tiger. Add them together and you could buy a new JS-2! But....would you want to?
If you were into racing, yes you would because if you are not stretching all the boundaries you don't win. If you were enjoying the more sociable, fun hobby of RC tanks then you'd probably prefer to spend that cash on another two complete tanks. I know l would, that's why l waited for the Taigen JS-2 rather than fork out for a Tamiya example. But when racing I'd happily pay well over 1500 quid to build a car (not a kit btw, but parts) which you knew you'd replace by the end of the season, with a set of tyres that cost 30-40 quid that wouldn't last a single race day. How crazy is that? I used to love it and since my sponsors donated virtually all my kit it was personally affordable but after 15 years of that l lost interest and moved to tanks, trucks and drones (no, l wasn't at Gatwick officer).
Now that I'm retired l'm enjoying more affordable hobbies and tanks offer a lot for your money, especially with mates around who help and supply them at great prices. I tolerate the poor quality speed controllers in tanks, l put up with the non proportional (big steps) of the functions and very poorly stepped sounds. I try to improve these deficiencies but much of what needs changing is stuck in a single MFU which is proprietary rather than open standard. One day? Yes, some of this can be swapped out but at a price. But have no fear, the Chinese will sort all this out for us, just as they did for computerised model railways, rc racing electronics and just about everything else on the planet!
Well, I'm falling asleep writing this so I've probably lost you some while ago. If I've upset anyone it was unintentional. I love what we do, at all levels, but l stand by what l said. We focus more on the model than the internals. Were that not so, the internals would be MUCH better, and much more expensive. As a hobby, l think we practice a fine but flexible compromise.
Sorry about the speeling!
