Walker Tanks Make No Sense!

 A few years ago I had a conversation with an engineer about using walkers as tanks and he hated the idea.  Over the course of a hour we talked through all the issues related to walkers as tanks and I had to agree with him. It is at that point I got rid of all of the walkers I had in my 28mm sci-fi collection.

But now I have entered a new era using "Lego Style" troops.  Most of the figures and vehicles are either Star Wars or 40K so I have started to build a world where those two universes collide.  One of the problems is that I want to be faithful to the ideas used in those worlds and both use walkers.

Thus I made the choice to build some walkers.  But to buy walker kits were to expensive so the choice was to make some.  Because "Lego Style"  is a building system it is easy to dig through the pile of building parts and make legs for the walker.  It was then a simple task to take some unused vehicles and change them from wheeled to legged.  And I think they look great.  They just seem to be more ominous.

With that said walkers are still a terrible idea.  There are lots of problems but they can be boiled down to 3 basic categories.

First is the height question.  A general rule is to keep the visibility of your tank low because if you they can see you they can not shoot you.  Adding legs by definition will make the vehicle taller and so make it stand out.  If you are easier to see you are easier to shoot.

 

Next is the issue of more of the tank is exposed to possible fire.  A reason tanks are normally low to the ground is to protect the vulnerable bottom of the tank.  With the bottom of the tank exposed there is more places for the enemy to hit.  It also mean that the bottom of the tank needs more are armor and thus the tank weighs more.  

The last problem is the most obvious but least understood.  To make the legs work takes considerable engineering and that makes the legs weak points.  There is no good way to solve this problem.  Most people think that adding armor will help but the more armor the more complicated the legs have to be and the better target they make.  Armor also slows down the vehicle and it means less armor for other parts of the vehicle.

In short walks look cool but are not practical.  This is my official rant on the subject.  
 

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