Can anyone explain why the main weapons on Imperial tanks have clip sizes greater than one? I'm assuming that this represents the amount of ready ammo in the turret rather than the cannons having drum or belt feeds?

There's two ways of interpreting it.

One is that the tanks have an auto loader and the total ammo size is undefined and the other one is that the clip size represents the total amount of ammo avaiable.

So that didn't get changed after the beta?

*sigh*

Why have a loader if he only has to do his job once ever 12 turns or whatever it is.

I think the clip size represents the efforts of the loader: he has 12 rounds in reach to shove them into the cannon, but after he burns through those, he has to replace them (with a 3Full reload). A clip size of 1 would be rather counterproductive with a 3Full reload time I guess…

Thanks for the replies folks.

I'm just going to go with that amount being how much 'ready' ammo is stored in the turret or ammo locker, and that the reload time includes the amount of time to shift ammo up from the hull. The autoloader sounds like a nice work around as well - I know a lot of soviet tanks had them. However it seems to me that they might be a big high tech for a 'standard' Leman Russ. Autoloaders are not features we hear about on basic vehicles (Titans maybe…).

I just found the clip size entry without any kind of description as to what it represents a bit strange. I could almost see there being a problem with a LR battlecannon being able to bang off rounds as quickly as a lasgun, but I know a trained loader can reload a tanks cannon in seconds… So long as other people agree it does not represent a big ammo drum or belt fed Battlecannon then I am cool with the rationalisation!

Just to clarify that, even with the clip size of 12, I would be requiring the loader to spend his full action shifting the shells about from ready ammo to gun, prepping the shell, getting rid of the previous firings shell casing, etc. So full round actions from him. If no loader then I would probably drop the firing time to 1 shell every 2 turns (the gunner is loading and firing) , with 3 full actions needing to be taken after all 12 'ready' shells have been expended (for the purpose of this example, after 24 turns 3 full turns would be required of nothing but loading).

Does that sound reasonable? I don't have the book handy to check that the LR has a loader, but in my mind it should/does have.

The loader is there to switch from one 12-shell magazine/cassette to another. This can be as one is emptied, or mid-magazine if a different ammo type is required. With multiple ammo types available the loader functions as a living, breathing Fire Selector. Otherwise, he functions as the guy that puts out fires (the Operator did take that choice, right) until the gun needs reloading.

IRL Loaders are their to load "Spechial" Shells and if anything goes wroung with the Auto-Loader, and it will go wroung even with him there to keep on top of it.

Drop Bear 2.0 said:

Not all tanks in real life have autoloaders.  The M1A2 for instance does not.  Alot of tanks with a autoloader don't even have a loader, the T-72 is manned with a 3 man crew for instance (commander, gunner, and driver). Many autoloaders are in fact slower than a well trained loader as well. 

We can't really compare 40k tanks to real life anyway because they are slightly silly in design and seem to lack like modern things like case and gyro-stabilizers (I could be wrong here as I don't have a imperial armour book, but the table top rules seem to reflect that they don't).

If you don't like the current rules you could always house rule the clip size is 1 and it takes a full action to reload, reduced to a half action if the loader has rapid reload to represent that he is more skilled (though I'm not sure what you would do with that other half action sitting in a tank).

I’d have to double check the latest IA, but I just don’t think Imperial Tanks would have auto-loaders.

I always envisioned the inside of a Russ to be very much a single-shot affair. The commander sights a target, the gunner fires, the loader removes the spend casing and slaps in another shell.

Seems odd that there’d even be a separate loader if he spends all his time sitting around waiting for the auto-loader to run out so he can reload a bunch of shells at once. It also seems to efficient for Imperial technology – it should be as manual and back-breaking as possible.

BYE

We might also consider how a real tank (In this case M1a1) works: Commander uses Tank sensors to locate target (Scrutiny) and passes target information to Gunner. Gunner Aquires target (Aim; full or half action), Gunner engages target (Fire action), Loader starts reload action (I would call it a full round action.) While Commander does battle damage assessment (Perception). Rinse, wash, repeat! A tank with an autoloader goes through the same process but it is demonstrably slower. As a result, The Battle cannon is only going to fire every 2 or 3 rounds. This clip size thing is something I plan to simply ignore! An M1 carries 40+ rounds in it's magazine so where the 12 comes from is beyond me! 

Radwraith said:

The Abrams stores all the rounds in the turret, where the loader can reach it. The Leman Russ stores its rounds in the hull, while it has spare place in the turret for some (12 as it seems) "quick-reach" rounds.

I imagine it more like the Sherman, with the majority of shells stored in the hull under the turret. I'm sure I have something with a cut away of the inside of a LR. Plus with the size of the turret… There's not much ammo storage space. 

Quoting from the book

"BATTLE CANNON

A massive version of the autocannon,……"

basically this tells me it has an autoloader as its not a breachloaded weapon but instead a slow firing scaled up autocannon.

however it does, as noted above, make the loader somewhat useless

Nefasine said:

This is the way the it appears to be written. The loader only needs to reload it to change to another 12-round magazine. Yes, this minimizes the role of the loader, but he's likely to be Comrade (who really wants a PC to be stuck as a loader), so I don't really see a problem with it.