RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

I'm from Texas, just turned 61, have an IT career and need more hobbies to dabble in. So anyway, I've been poking around in forums and reddits for a couple hours. But I've been looking at MotionRC tanks for a couple months. Heng Long 1:16 seems about right for my use case. Running RC Tanks sounds really fun, but I wont know how fun, or for how long I won't get bored and leave it as a display.

I live in rural acreage, heavy forest, gravel roads, some dusty trails (some with leaves and twigs) and flagstone paths. I figure I'll run the tank in the house mostly to annoy my wfie & dogs, but would be nice to take it out and tackle some tuff terrain eventually. Maybe shoot some acorns or tin cans with the BBs. Probably won't mess with smoke (ok, maybe once or twice) or IR. I have a couple RC Helis I don't fly much as they always break something in a flying session, leaving me half of my batteries fully charge when I call it quits. They are fun, i'm not a great pilot, and a clearing in a forest is a terrible place to practice fying helis. Tanks seem a little more appropriate for where I live (as long as I stay out of the sugar sand up in the unimproved pasture, according to what I'v read so far).

Here's my short list of possible tanks to get as my first (and being truthful with myself, maybe my last/only:

• US Pershing
  M4A3 Sherman
  IDF Merkava
  M41 Walker Bulldog

There are others I like too, but I want my first tank to be a bit more compact at 20" or less. *Abrams, Crusaders, Leapord 2xyzs start getting pretty big.

I'll save other question about the pros/cons of feature packs, and a few about the radio, tbe battery, and other stuff for a future posts in the right forum

Welcome to the group and thank you for a well worded introduction.

I don't have any experience with any of those tanks but other members will chime in soon and share what's what. I can tell you that the Merkava is the biggest of all those tanks but You'd likely be well impressed with it.

Motion is a solid company to deal with I've gotten several tanks and all sorts of other stuff from them in the past few years. They are well established and have fair market pricing and of course free shipping over $100.

Wow, two Texans joining in like two days. I'm an IT guy also in Elgin, TX so welcome from central Texas. Not a huge fan of the Bulldog as it's pretty out of scale. The Merkava a is good tank, but it is large. I haven't been able to run my Pershing much as I'm still building it. Other seem to like the Pershing though. You can't really go wrong with a Sherman. If you are in central TX, you could check out Texas Armor Association - Western Division on Facebook. Anyway, if you have any questions feel free to ask.

The HL M4A3 Sherman is one of the the smallest of the bunch, and I have a BUNCH of them. Terrific runners out of the box and most of my fleet run the basic plastic tracks with nylon transmission gears. I've never broke a thing. Some here will dissagree and sugest metal tracks and metal trans gears, but it's a fairly light tank and the plastics have held up fine.

The Bulldog is a known good runner and is probably smaller and lighter than the Sherman. I don't have experience with that tank...

Welcome along from the Gold Coast of Australia out of New Zealand.
You have a size restriction on a tank ??
Aint things always bigger in Texas ?!!
Out of your list I'd go the Merkava, but, its big.

viewtopic.php?t=36024&start=210

Then Id go the Sherman. Much more combat provenance than the Pershing, and the poor old Bulldog is just that, a dog.
Just get one & go from there, but dont kid yourself that one is it...............(hey fellas, we got another "1 will do me" case !!)

Hi and welcome aboard

Welcome! There is a lot of good advice here. I have enough Shermans to take out one and one-half Tigers (I.e. six or seven, but who's counting) and no running problems, although mine almost always run indoors on friendly surfaces. Given, perhaps, to overdoing it, as Ecam would rightly note, I do try to get the metal upgraded versions. I have had good experience with MotionRC.

KernelClinq wrote: ↑Thu Nov 06, 2025 3:33 am I'm from Texas, just turned 61, have an IT career and need more hobbies to dabble in. So anyway, I've been poking around in forums and reddits for a couple hours. But I've been looking at MotionRC tanks for a couple months. Heng Long 1:16 seems about right for my use case. Running RC Tanks sounds really fun, but I wont know how fun, or for how long I won't get bored and leave it as a display.

G'day mate, I'm the other new Texan on the forums to whom @Tankme referred. Must be something in the air this week Welcome aboard, this place seems to offer everything we'll need to make a good start with these machines!

TRB

Everybody's first tank should be a Tiger 1

Welcome from Ontario, Canada

The Sherman is a chunky solid runner. The Bulldog has lots of scale issues, but the suspension is simple and solid, and opens up lots of camouflage schemes. Either is a good choice.

You mentioned a Crusader, and it's a pretty small tank, so I wouldn't discount it.

Mike.