The first sub-assembly to tackle was the suspension. I wanted to build it as a separate chassis to which the hull would be affixed. This might mean a slightly smaller crew compartment, but much easier ability to make changes to the design. I also thought this would be better than a complex and fragile through-hull axle mounting and complex indexing joints.
The real Panther and Tiger tanks use a torsion bar suspension, where a long rod is twisted by a wheel on a lever instead of using coil/leaf/volute springs. I figured I’d try to mimic that, using regular rods to start and test the design. I could later use the flexible ones to fine-tune the tortional resistance.
I laid out a simple pair of center beam supports to attach the torsion bars. They are a series of 9 yellow connectors with white rods, connected via several blue rod cross braces. I used gray rods for each torsion bar, with road wheels on yellow rods connected by doubled orange connectors. This will give me reasonable torsional stability, and I can adjust the stiffness in several places.
