Every now and again, I feel the desire to work on a Leman Russ design.
When messing with drawing diagrams, I came to the (obvious) realization that everyone comes to looking at the actual models, that there's barely enough space there for the gun and the one crewman shown, let alone more.
However, what if there was only 1 crewman and just enough space for the gun in the turret? A one man turret would be in line with the WWI-early WWII ascetics. And, some "modern" technology could limit many of the downsides. Points in Favor:
1) The turret being just large enough for the gun and a commander might dramatically shrink the needed volume for the turret, and thus overall armor needed. Turret is potentially very costly to armor, since it sticks out from the efficient to armor box, and being so high is also more likely to be hit, suggesting higher levels of armor than the main body too. Putting as little in the turret itself is thus a major advantage.
2) One of the major sources of overwork in a traditional 1 man turret is the need to load. This is easily solved with an autoloader: that also allows ammo to be stored in the hull, increasing armor efficiency. Most weapons a Leman Russ might be equipped with practically would have an autoloader anyways: Laser and plasma weapons obviously do not need a conventional loader, and autocannons by definition have some sort of auto loading setup. You may need someone to feed a clip depending on how limited the ready rounds are, but that still may be a net win to have the extra ammo and loader in the relatively safe hull.
3) Leman Russ are implied to have some level or sensors, electronics, and powered turrets. All of that makes crew location less dependent on equipment location: an optical sight requires the gunner to be located close to the gun: to be able to manually adjust elevation. With electronic sensors and fully powered systems however, the gunner can be placed elsewhere, and duplicated: your gunner could be in the hull, with the hull weapon, and potentially operate either the hull gun or turret gun, depending on the situation, while the commander can also operate the turret weapon to some reasonable degree despite being at the back of the turret, somewhat physically distant from the actual aiming and default sights for the gun. If the engine is also "drive by wire", which may be, theoretically it may be possible for the commander to drive and operate the full tank from the commanders chair, though that is likely sub optimal.
4) Thus, with fairly primitive tech, you both can theoretically have the commander do any task in the tank, which is valuable for redundancy in crew casualties and when crew quality can be uneven: ideally you'd have a generally competent crew, but if you can only guarantee one generally competent person per tank, that one competent person can wrangle from the other incompetents. But, the tech also allows the rest of the crew to participate too, and the one commander in the turret doesn't have to do everything either: tech makes the 1 man turret closer to a 2-3 man one in operation.
5) However, still having someone in the turret makes sense to me as well, rather than going for a completely unmanned turret: for one it provides redundancy: you don't want one guy to have to manually hand crank the turret if the electronics fail, but if you need to your glad its an option: he might not have an optimally placed optical sight, but he can have some sights and range finder is video fails. Having someone who can look through periscopes at the top of the tank, or stick his head out to have a look around seems to still provide some advantage to situational awareness, as well as someone to man the pintle mounted gun. Plus it gives someone with an eye in the turret who can visually confirm the autoloaders functioning, fix an error if he does see a problem, and try to manually load if its not a fixable problem, and generally have a broader situational awareness of the interior of the vehicle.
6) Smaller turret, while saving weight on the turret itself, can also allow a shrinking of the vehicle overall, as the volume for a turret basket is also minimized.
Thus, especially within 40k Imperial guard limitations, and the planetary militia situations its my understanding the Leman Russ standard template is designed for, it seems like a 2+ crew in the hull and 1 man turret makes sense for a vehicle like the Leman Russ, over either a 3-4 man turret or a fully automated turret, even though such would be theoretically possible for the Imperial guard to do.
When messing with drawing diagrams, I came to the (obvious) realization that everyone comes to looking at the actual models, that there's barely enough space there for the gun and the one crewman shown, let alone more.
However, what if there was only 1 crewman and just enough space for the gun in the turret? A one man turret would be in line with the WWI-early WWII ascetics. And, some "modern" technology could limit many of the downsides. Points in Favor:
1) The turret being just large enough for the gun and a commander might dramatically shrink the needed volume for the turret, and thus overall armor needed. Turret is potentially very costly to armor, since it sticks out from the efficient to armor box, and being so high is also more likely to be hit, suggesting higher levels of armor than the main body too. Putting as little in the turret itself is thus a major advantage.
2) One of the major sources of overwork in a traditional 1 man turret is the need to load. This is easily solved with an autoloader: that also allows ammo to be stored in the hull, increasing armor efficiency. Most weapons a Leman Russ might be equipped with practically would have an autoloader anyways: Laser and plasma weapons obviously do not need a conventional loader, and autocannons by definition have some sort of auto loading setup. You may need someone to feed a clip depending on how limited the ready rounds are, but that still may be a net win to have the extra ammo and loader in the relatively safe hull.
3) Leman Russ are implied to have some level or sensors, electronics, and powered turrets. All of that makes crew location less dependent on equipment location: an optical sight requires the gunner to be located close to the gun: to be able to manually adjust elevation. With electronic sensors and fully powered systems however, the gunner can be placed elsewhere, and duplicated: your gunner could be in the hull, with the hull weapon, and potentially operate either the hull gun or turret gun, depending on the situation, while the commander can also operate the turret weapon to some reasonable degree despite being at the back of the turret, somewhat physically distant from the actual aiming and default sights for the gun. If the engine is also "drive by wire", which may be, theoretically it may be possible for the commander to drive and operate the full tank from the commanders chair, though that is likely sub optimal.
4) Thus, with fairly primitive tech, you both can theoretically have the commander do any task in the tank, which is valuable for redundancy in crew casualties and when crew quality can be uneven: ideally you'd have a generally competent crew, but if you can only guarantee one generally competent person per tank, that one competent person can wrangle from the other incompetents. But, the tech also allows the rest of the crew to participate too, and the one commander in the turret doesn't have to do everything either: tech makes the 1 man turret closer to a 2-3 man one in operation.
5) However, still having someone in the turret makes sense to me as well, rather than going for a completely unmanned turret: for one it provides redundancy: you don't want one guy to have to manually hand crank the turret if the electronics fail, but if you need to your glad its an option: he might not have an optimally placed optical sight, but he can have some sights and range finder is video fails. Having someone who can look through periscopes at the top of the tank, or stick his head out to have a look around seems to still provide some advantage to situational awareness, as well as someone to man the pintle mounted gun. Plus it gives someone with an eye in the turret who can visually confirm the autoloaders functioning, fix an error if he does see a problem, and try to manually load if its not a fixable problem, and generally have a broader situational awareness of the interior of the vehicle.
6) Smaller turret, while saving weight on the turret itself, can also allow a shrinking of the vehicle overall, as the volume for a turret basket is also minimized.
Thus, especially within 40k Imperial guard limitations, and the planetary militia situations its my understanding the Leman Russ standard template is designed for, it seems like a 2+ crew in the hull and 1 man turret makes sense for a vehicle like the Leman Russ, over either a 3-4 man turret or a fully automated turret, even though such would be theoretically possible for the Imperial guard to do.