I was thinking of using the Panther tracks for the front of the pic, I should've done that.
Went back and edited the pic of the Pansa's front view, looks better to my eye now.
Thanks and here's a closer copy I did earlier.
It sounds like what you're designing here is a partially-casemated and bigger version of this...
). For those in here who mightn't be familiar with it, the designers took a Panzer II and did some serious surgery to it, adding twenty four inches onto the length (and thus giving it an extra road wheel) and some thirteen inches to the width. but that let it carry a 15cm gun and 30 rounds of ammunition. It is pure assault gun territory, but the dimensions of it are interesting: using the numbers from Wikipedia, the regular Panzer II clocked in at a length of 4.81 meters (or 15ft 9in) and a width of 2.22 meters (or 7ft 3 in) and the Panzer III came in at 5.56 meters (18 ft 3 in) and a width of 2.9 meters (or 9 ft 6 inches)...which doesn't sound that interesting til you realise that the modifications made to the Sturmpanzer II brought it to a length of 5.41 meters (17 ft 9 in or so) and a width of 2.6 meters (or 8 ft 5 inches), which means that these modifications to the dimensions of the Panzer II hull used in the process were basically enough to scale the hull to almost Panzer III sizes. Clearly, the hull must've cracked open a can of spinach like Pop Eye 
Thought experiment
Yeah I was just thinking the Sturmtiger could be lighter and now that you've mentioned it, the Brummbar could be lighter too and the saving in weight will help to cut down on wear and tear on the vehicles engines.It sounds like what you're designing here is a partially-casemated and bigger version of this...
...which Wiki names as the Sturmpanzer II Bison (well, not really - the article is titled 15 cm sIG 33 auf Fahrgestell Panzerkampfwagen II (Sf), but that's a bit formal
That said, the general idea behind it seems like it could be a way to create an alternative Sturmtiger. Using this calculator, the modifications to the Panzer II were 11% extra length and 15% extra width. If you could do the same kind of scale up to something like the Panzer IV as they did for the Panzer II, then that'd take it from 5.92 meters to 6.57 in length and from 2.88 meters in width to 3.31 meters. That makes it a bit longer than a Tiger but a bit more narrow, sort of comparable to the Panther in overall dimensions, which is probably plenty of space, and the Panzer IV is a pretty well tested framework (a well tested framework that is going to get butchered in this, mind, but a well tested framework all the same) and we've got a pretty interesting potential frame to go with right from the get go in the form of the Brummbar:
It used the same shells as said Sturmpanzer II, carrying about 38 or so - not much more than the Sturmpanzer II, but this is just a regular Panzer IV hull in size and length, and it is losing a fair amount of usable hull volume and weight to the great massive slabs of armor it is hauling around (a 100mm sloped frontal plate to be precise, if I remember right) . If you tore that off and stripped it down to a partial casemate, or hell, tore off the casemate entirely and just went with something like a splinter/shrapnel guard thick enough only to resist things like heavy machine gun fire (like, say, 20mm?), you could probably free up a ton of weight, then rescale the vehicle the way the Sturmpanzer II was and give it Tiger size. The resulting monstrosity could probably carry the same 38cm that the Sturmtiger did, but ammunition might be tight and you might want more armor. If that's the case you could potentially downsize the gun and start to make a real abomination by using something like, say, a 20 cm leichter Ladungswerfer spigot mortar, the 30cm Rakenwerfer 56 (which has the bonus of each rocket weighing about a third as much as the Sturmtiger's so you could potentially fit a lot of them and get similar-ish performance), the 38 cm schwerer Ladungswerfer spigot mortar which is an awfully hard weapon to find images of with Google but which seems to look like this...
...and is basically the gun off the Churchill if you gave it a lot of steroids (from what numbers I can find, the shells from this monstrosity weigh three times as much as those of the Churchill but are still not even half the weight of those on the Sturmtiger, which says a lot about how over the top the Sturmtiger actually is), which is probably well suited for the task of an assault gun. None of these but the rocket launcher would have the range of the Sturmtiger, mind, but they'd probably be able to do pretty well in an infantry support role by blowing up buildings, destroying entrenched defenders and just generally be the bane of anyone in a fortified position, and do so using ammunition that should already be in production and, hopefully, maintain spare parts compatibility with existing, busy production lines. It isn't a war winner by any means, but it could be a neat contraption all the same
The Pz. IV IMHO is the most underrated medium tank of WWII, people go on and on about the T-34 and the Sherman but look at how versatile the Pz.IV was and it was in combat before the other two and still fighting in the last days of the war, a great tank for sure and the Brumbar, the Nashorn and Wirbelwind were pretty good too.
Yes one of the many variants of the Pz.IV.
That's funny, I've never heard of the P4 as 'underrated', it's always been one of the 'classic' mediums alongside the Sherman and Cromwell. Oddly enough, I've heard more trashing of the T-34 as being a pretty shitty 'disposable tank' or even 'not a real tank' because it doesn't even have a turret basket.
It sounds like what you're designing here is a partially-casemated and bigger version of this...
...which Wiki names as the Sturmpanzer II Bison (well, not really - the article is titled 15 cm sIG 33 auf Fahrgestell Panzerkampfwagen II (Sf), but that's a bit formal
That said, the general idea behind it seems like it could be a way to create an alternative Sturmtiger. Using this calculator, the modifications to the Panzer II were 11% extra length and 15% extra width. If you could do the same kind of scale up to something like the Panzer IV as they did for the Panzer II, then that'd take it from 5.92 meters to 6.57 in length and from 2.88 meters in width to 3.31 meters. That makes it a bit longer than a Tiger but a bit more narrow, sort of comparable to the Panther in overall dimensions, which is probably plenty of space, and the Panzer IV is a pretty well tested framework (a well tested framework that is going to get butchered in this, mind, but a well tested framework all the same) and we've got a pretty interesting potential frame to go with right from the get go in the form of the Brummbar:
It used the same shells as said Sturmpanzer II, carrying about 38 or so - not much more than the Sturmpanzer II, but this is just a regular Panzer IV hull in size and length, and it is losing a fair amount of usable hull volume and weight to the great massive slabs of armor it is hauling around (a 100mm sloped frontal plate to be precise, if I remember right) . If you tore that off and stripped it down to a partial casemate, or hell, tore off the casemate entirely and just went with something like a splinter/shrapnel guard thick enough only to resist things like heavy machine gun fire (like, say, 20mm?), you could probably free up a ton of weight, then rescale the vehicle the way the Sturmpanzer II was and give it Tiger size. The resulting monstrosity could probably carry the same 38cm that the Sturmtiger did, but ammunition might be tight and you might want more armor. If that's the case you could potentially downsize the gun and start to make a real abomination by using something like, say, a 20 cm leichter Ladungswerfer spigot mortar, the 30cm Rakenwerfer 56 (which has the bonus of each rocket weighing about a third as much as the Sturmtiger's so you could potentially fit a lot of them and get similar-ish performance), the 38 cm schwerer Ladungswerfer spigot mortar which is an awfully hard weapon to find images of with Google but which seems to look like this...
...and is basically the gun off the Churchill if you gave it a lot of steroids (from what numbers I can find, the shells from this monstrosity weigh three times as much as those of the Churchill but are still not even half the weight of those on the Sturmtiger, which says a lot about how over the top the Sturmtiger actually is), which is probably well suited for the task of an assault gun. None of these but the rocket launcher would have the range of the Sturmtiger, mind, but they'd probably be able to do pretty well in an infantry support role by blowing up buildings, destroying entrenched defenders and just generally be the bane of anyone in a fortified position, and do so using ammunition that should already be in production and, hopefully, maintain spare parts compatibility with existing, busy production lines. It isn't a war winner by any means, but it could be a neat contraption all the same
Alternate Brummbar.
I've seen it described as "below average" and "under gunned" and worse on other sites but in most articles and documentaries on the great tanks of WWII the Pz.IV is rarely mentioned, I don't think I've ever seen it described as a "classic" except here maybe.
Ah, the 'light Brummbar'! I imagine the front armour is considerably lighter than the normal type considering they've kept it open top so it's not really expected to be shot at in an assault role. I suspect they'd fit it with a longer-range howitzer if they were going for an open-top gun tractor.
Lol! Grouchy I love it.
