you can. You can't put the frame vertical, but the cabin only has to be on 1 connection point of the frame, theoretically, lately my tanks have been built thusly. I put a frame part at the front and back of the cabin, the tracks can connect to both leaving a relatively safe place to hide my generator and other explosives at or just below the frame height. Basically my car's already stripped by the time my explosives are exposed to direct fire. I used to build the frame all the way around, but realized with the tank treads I didn't need to because the treads are more durable than just about anything else on the build.
Did we never attempt to play this game? Or has it simply never gotten a forum I can find? It's another Gaijin game like Warthunder, basically Mad Max vehicle build and arena combat. There's a little P2W as it can be very difficult to obtain the high end weapons and equipment otherwise, but it's still doable, and the gear scoring method is fairly adequate. You can bring the big guns into the lower tiers but it's at the expense of just about everything else. I even made a video at one point of my little murder tank. I could swear I posted it at one point, but... well it's been a while. found it XD
I don't know about a forum post. We did have a few of us playing it. I have noticed I had to relogin. I wasn't seeing everything from the forums. Like the space engineers stuff wasn't showing till I logged into the forums again.
It saw a decent amount of play in the past and have been on our recommended games list. Here is the original thread we had for it: http://theskjaldborg.com/index.php?threads/crossout.11428/