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Raketenspähpanzer "Luchs"

Due to stock part limitations that I don’t know how to get around, my Panzer II Ausf.L "Luchs" replica ended up as a fictional Luft-46 style vehicle - the Raketenspähpanzer "Luchs" (missile-armed scout tank "Lynx") . Equipped with 5 cm main gun, X-7 Rotkäppchen anti-tank guided missile and infrared night vision device, this nimble light tank can not only scout, but also cause some serious headache to stronger enemy.

However, the in-game craft can’t achieve such performance. It’s mainly built for the look.

Pure stock, no mods, no DLCs. 347 parts, root part is the golden RoveMate in turret.
"Unknown part module" is caused by MechJeb autopilot functions, has no negative effect at all.
No cheat required, but some cheats are recommended to avoid unnecessary troubles, see Design Notes.
Version with DLC turret mount available here

- Stock turret bearing giving it auto-lock on functionality, see video
- Functional anti-tank (unguided) missile with a fairly high chance to destroy one of its own kind at 100-120m, see video and Design Notes: The Missile
- Muzzle flash and engine exhaust visual effect
- Decorative tracks and other details
- Provides some spectacular explosions thanks to radiator panels, see video

- Stage once to separate turret and turn on power.
- A/D to rotate turret, ]/[ to switch between turret and hull.
- Set throttle of both of them to >0 to enable visual effects. Abort action group (backspace) on turret "fires" the gun.
- Engage SAS on turret, lock on target at 100-120m range, stage again to fire missile.

- This project started shortly after completing my Hetzer. Yeah that was a long time ago.
- Weighing 30t in-game, this craft is not really nimble. Top speed ~12m/s.
- It hates any kind of slope. Once speed exceeds 8m/s, the decorative tracks will explode unless moving on perfectly flat surfaces. Besides, it has difficulties climbing up even very slight slopes.
- It’s recommended to turn on no crash damage, unbreakable joint and infinite electricity in Alt+F12 debug menu to avoid unnecessary trouble, but it’s not mandatory to use cheat. Switch them off if you want to fire the missile and blow things up.
- The light on turret is meant to be an infrared spotlight, thus not illuminated and not tied to the Light action group. Manually switch it on if you like.

- It’s a major PITA to make it work reliably (kind of), so I’d like to talk about it separately.
- Some of you might remember my earlier attempt to build a guided X-7[kerbalx.com], but I think that’s too big for this vehicle. The current version is small enough, but too small for any control device in stock KSP, so it has to be unguided.
- Its CoM shifts vertically as solid fuel burns, making a perfect alignment of CoM and CoT impossible. But I used this to my advantage: after some painful fine-tuning of CoM, the thrust will firstly force the missile to dive a little, then stop diving, and finally pull up to a very slight climb. SRB burns out at this point, the missile then glides with a near-horizontal velocity vector beneath the height of launch rail, rushing toward the target’s hull.
- If everything goes perfectly well, this would ensure a hit, but KSP physics is not something known for precision, so it’s possible to overshoot or fall short to the ground. It’s recommended to quicksave before separating the turret so that you can try again if it misses. The second and third launches in the video occur under identical situation (the same quicksave), but it's clear that the missiles hit different spots.
- The missile can destroy weak radiator panels I use for the hull, but that’s about it. After all it’s built mainly for the look, I’m already very pleased that it kinda works.

Wish you enjoy and happy PANZER VOR!