She weighed 31K with full water tanks and and fuel, which is less than I calculated by 2K but I went very conservative in those weight and balance calculations. I might have been able to get away with a single rear axle, but I am very glad we went double- we unloaded her two days ago after a year living full time and it took 8 hours! She must have been up around 35K. The chassis will handle 52K so she is still way under weight. Some numbers
8' 4" wide, 36' long, 12' 9" tall. 400 gallons water full (including the soaking tub and hot water heater) 270 gal diesel including a rear 70 gal tank for just the household services. Reefer and fridge are 12v. Reefer is a drop in 9 cubic foot which was really handy.
It was a large truck for Europe but I wouldn't go any smaller. Once you get bigger than a camper van and a standard parking spot it really didn't make a big difference. The roads are narrow in Western Europe, off the highways, but we had no problem even on single lane roads up in the Scottish Highlands, trucks go everywhere, and we can go wherever a truck can. You just can not trust the GPS and we never entered the cities without a specific route planned and checked on google earth. That was after we got stuck in Toulouse France and had to have the police back out traffic so we could back out! (they were super nice about it) The height limit for Europe is 4 meters and we are 3.9 so we fit on all ferries and under all bridges, there were some lower but they are well marked before the turn onto them and always an alternate route. Overall I think we were a good size- going tall vice long was good.
Europe has been on Ultra-Low sulfer fuel for years, you can't find anything else, even in the remote spots like Turkey, Albania and Bulgaria. We went with 200 gallons because I just wasn't sure, but we could have easily gone with 100 gal total.
I love those navy racks- having done 6 deployments on aircraft carriers I can attest to how tightly we pack people in. The emergency egress issue is actually easily solved- I was going to put an exit door from each room, they are near ground level but didn't due to security and time, we we on a tight build schedule and doors take time to make. My initial plan had access only from the outside because of initial interior access problems, but that would have been to hard, leave the RV to go to bed. We had extinguishers in every room, actually in every bed, and we had 6 fire alarms. Every compartment had one.
We used about 300AH a day and the panels will easily produce that much on all but the worst days. I think we could have had less battery capacity, but it was nice when we needed it and lower discharge cycles will keep the batteries heathly exponentially longer. Once the batteries are full the Outback system will divert the extra to high loads such as the electrical element of the hot water heater.
Don't hesitate to ask any more questions, its nice to find someone not bored by my Shachagra talk (I hope)