For the prop department to spend resources on making a moving tread prop, this has to be a character.

 

I'm pretty sure they have developed a library with plenty of individual and tweakable stock transformations of many many potential different vehicles and transformer heights that could be used.

 

Has no one considered that all these older vehicles like say, an old bomber or an old tank might be the initial forms of a certain military themed commando unit with a history of european accents?

 

I will say this much:
Remember back in a TF vs GI Joe comic set during WW2, Grimlock was a Mark 8 of this type of tank- like the one in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

I dig these things, and for a while knew quite about them- even how to identify a male vs. female tank.

I've since forgotten, but still hope to get a good toy of this. _if nothing else, get a bunch of them and make Dinobots out of them

 

Well one part of me wishes it'd be true, mainly because this is what I believe is one of the things that made the first movie so original and special (at least for me). What I'm talking about is the alts were so different and every character had it's own unique vehicular mode. We had a jet (cybertronian and earthly), a helicopter, a police car, a tank, a truck, a muscle car, an ambulance, a cassette player...you see where I'm going? I think this is one the things that Transformers desperatelly needs back - diversity in alt modes! Nowadays most of the robots turn into shiny, sleek cars and one military truck, I know why this happens, from a financtial point of view they have to promote the latest cars, but still... So this unique-looking tank will be a good addition, perhaps Warparth, by the way I still think the McLaren is Override though, but on the other hand we already have plenty of robots to the cast and since it is obviously a problem for all the character to get their moments to shy in these movies coughrotfcough, I'm not really sure how all this could play out.

 

Plus Onslaught which is already confirmed = Bruticus? Vortex could at the very least be CGI'd in.

 

Probably not given nobody likes Bruticus if he doesn't have that space shuttle arm.

 

I for one never liked nor thought the space shuttle arm was any good. I'd be al for not having that lol

 

oh my god, we're getting movie seacons!

 

Please, please, let them all be Transformers characters.

Love the B-17, personally feel it's one of the most beautiful looking heavy bombers of WW2. If that turned into a giant robot I'll be over the moon.

 

Hey, he was briefly a WW2 bomber in g1, so if they want to go that route (cause outside of lockdown, and now bumblebee the movies have treated scale pretty realistically) I'm fine with it.

 

No, he was not. He was built from a WW2 bomber...except it was the B-17, which was an American plane introduced in 1935.

Additionally, the problem with bombers is their deceptive mass. Sure, they look big...on the outside, but on the inside they're stripped bare of anything not mission-essential to make room for all the heavy bombs. The original prototype Model 299's wreckage illustrates as such:


Additionally, these things...are not fast or really that exciting. Maximum speed (no payload) is rated at only 287 mph, which it would never attain under wartime conditions unless it was plummeting from the sky, and cruising speed is rated at 182 mph. I've actually seen one of the touring B-17s; 'Aluminum Overcast' in a climb (didn't even know it was scheduled to be in town so it scared the ever loving shit out of me when it popped up in sight behind a hill) because from a distance, that thing was almost floating in place with barely any discernible movement.

Also, we did get something close to a WWII bomber style Decepticon with RtS Lugnut, who is basically a B-24 with the tail of a B-17. The key word there being 'basically' because needing to transform means he isn't accurate despite the shape. B-24's didn't have giant-ass turbofan jets mounted between the wings and fuselauge, and Lugnut has to cheat with excess crap on the wings as those form his giant hands. The toy itself is a marvel of engineering in how it works suitably huge arms from thin wings but as a result of how 'blocky' the robot still is, it is one of the less movie-like figures of that period. And an actual movie bomber figure would be problematic because it wouldn't be allowed to be that simple.

 

I stand corrected, never been good with non jet military planes. It is however interesting that you bring up the fact that bombers were mostly hollow, would you say they'd have aproximately the same mass as maaaaaaybe an Apache helicopter?

 

Not even close. I may not know cars but aircraft I know  

Also keep in mind that just because the WWII craft mainly bombers were mostly hollow inside, the frame of the air craft was still made out of much heavier metals than in current day air craft. Same pretense as in automobiles then and now.


Anyhow, the B-17 was 36,136 lb empty and 72,003 lb loaded with bombs and munitions.

Where as the current day Apache is 11,386 lb empty and 23,000 lb loaded for combat.

 

No. Primarily the Apache in anything resembling its modern form did not first take flight until 1975, but I don't think you quite understand how little mass bombers had on their own without fuel and payload. This is the nose gunner view from one of the B-17's still remaining but produced too late for the war (none of the B-17s flying today ever saw wartime action).


And this is a shot of the famous Memphis Belle - the actual one - during restoration. The body has been split to make getting around the body easier and you can see this is little more than a metal hollow tube with ancient electronics in it from nose to tail.


And just to put things in perspective, this is B-29 Bockscar - the one that dropped the second bomb - being moved from the original USAF museum to the new and present day location at Wright-Patt. By two-lane interstate highway.


The Apache, meanwhile...doesn't even have that.


Like, in terms of actual, workable places to conceivably hide robot parts, the apache wins simply because the only open portion of it is the cockpit, the rest is solid machinery. WWII Bombers were little more than glorified metal tubes to deliver bombs indiscriminately from on high - the He 111 used by the Germans for most of the war was in fact a re-purposed passenger plane design for that reason!

 

old ass robot, tank alt mode, low chance of transforming? maybe it's Xaaron LOL

 

Mass was the wrong word (thanks TF fandom), because we can assume both would be made of transfomium (if both were characters), I guess what I meant to say was volume (not like interior space, but like the volume of the materials used in construction).

 

^ THIS.

The robot parts aren't "hidden" within the alt. modes...the robot parts BECOME the alt. modes.

Movieverse logic does not equal toy logic. If you flip over Bumblebee you won't see his face staring at you from under the engine block, lol.