Q, Puma steering. Update

Wow! German engineering and technology has continued to amaze me!

Yep, geometry and physics apply here. Since all 8 wheels are driven simultaneously, if they all turned at the same angle in the steering, the vehicle would actually overturn.

Bish & wing_nut, thanks for the support on this. My mind is now quite settled.

Interesting comment of yours wing_nut regarding the judges, my builds are not good enough to go in front of judges so it will never happen to me...cheers....Kenny

Seems to make sense to me as well, though haveing the wheels at different angles is not somthing i would of thought of myself.

A ways back when I did a 234 I  found several things that said the same thing with regards to the different rates of turn for the end set of wheels and the inner set.  It makes sense though when you look at it from the point of geometry. The end of the vehicle is further out in the arc of the turn, has further to go to keep up with the rest of the vehicle and has to turn a bit sharper.  Otherwise it would be draged somewhat sideways across the ground.  Whetehr it is half the amounmt or nto I dodn't know but there is a difference.

This is one of those things that make me wonder how many judges, AMPS of IPMS, have taken off points because they thought the wheels were not "even".  But that's another argumentxxx er... discussion

I have done some more searching and found this on another modeling forum;

I have not been able to find a definitive answere, so do'es anyone have any thoughtson this being correct...cheers....Kenny

Bish and Bill, thanks for your replys; it would seem then that the way I have posed the wheels would be correct...cheers....kenny

Bish is correct...all 8 wheel steering and all 8 wheel drive was standard on the 234 family (as well as the earlier 8-rad designs). They could literally turn on a dime as a result. So if you turn one set in the pose, you need to turn them all.

These 8 wheeled vehicles were originally meant to be able to be used on railways as well as roads. That meant they had a driving position faceing both ways. This also mean that they could drive out of a situation just as easily as driving into one without haveing to turn round, handy for a recon vehicle.

So it would make sense that all 8 wheels could be turned.