I have a friend who was a bradley gunner in the initial iraq invasion. He told me a story of him finding a MP40 and carrying it around for a while telling people it was a new experimental crew weapon. He got away with it until a british officer visited the base and busted him on it.
@@lostalone9320 Because they'd been out of production for a few decades by that point, with most of the M3A1s I imagine being Vietnam-era manufacture. The contemporary Infantry weapon was, if I remember my facts and figures properly, the M16A2 and they had recently adopted the CAR-15 as the M4 or something. At least an MP40, which uses the same ammunition (the M3A1 was in 9x19 as opposed to the original .45), has some sort neatness factor and is functionally identical. Though I wouldn't want to have to scrounge up mags for it.
Chieftain - just as an FYI, I'm sure I speak for most people on this channel - but never apologise for going off on Tangents. The longer you ramble about Esoteric and interesting subjects, the happier I am
Re: fighting the something less than the first team. Back in the early 90s an Air Force briefing team was making the rounds and showed up at NAVAIR to talk about aircraft losses in the Gulf War and projections for the future. The briefer had a slide showing the steadily declining sortie attrition rates from WWII through the Gulf War. He pointed to Vietnam and said we will never see even this level of attrition ever again. A contractor from in the back of the room spoke up with "I was a flight engineer in the 8th AF and let me tell you, you weren't exactly flying against the Luftwaffe." Like the Germans in 1939-41 the US military has fooled itself into thinking we would never again face peer/near peer competitor based on our recent successes.
Quantity had a quality all of its own. And china for instance has plenty of the core technologies to build and produce modern weapons of war. They are not far off being first line forces, hopefully we can diffuse some of the global tension, although if shots were fired, the world's merchant marine would probably be the first casualty. (Although that has always been a sign of overconfidence in submariners... After all they suffer limited logistics)
@@glenmcgillivray4707 Not to be all rah-rah patriotic, but the US has something China doesn't have - a cadre of veterans from Iraq War 2 and Afghanistan.
@@thebog11 the only thing trump did right: first Republican in 30 years who took power and didn't start a war. Got a bit close near the end, but thankfully he didn't. How we might regard a civil war or similar I can't say.
@@glenmcgillivray4707 I agree completely. The point I was trying to make was that the military China is trying to build is an untested one. Maybe they'll test it on Vietnam or Thailand or some minor neighbor.
To be fair about the 1973 Suez crossing, the Egyptians basically spent five years planning and rehearsing that one operation in ridiculous detail.... where things broke down was when there plan had worked and they had achieved their objectives, but they hadn't developed a follow-on Phase II and had to start improvising.
@@davidkoonce9075 Well the original plan was basically to grab a chunk of the Sinai back, fortify the crap out of it to hold it against counterattacks, and then wait for a ceasefire, with the political/diplomatic goal of showing the world that the Israelis could be beaten. That pretty much worked, and the Suez crossing is one of the all-time great feats of military engineering under fire, but the wheels came off when the Golan front collapsed and Syria started screaming for help, which forced the Egyptians to attempt to relieve some of the pressure on them with a further attack beyond what had been planned, and that turned into an unplanned battle of maneuver, which they lost.
It was not just an Egyptian attack, the Syrians, Jordanians along with allied troops sent to help were to attack from the other sides. The Egyptians went for an attritional battle after crossing - digging in I protected supposedly mutually supporting positions to await the inevitable Israeli counter attack. The IAF made desperate sorties losing aircraft heavily to Egyptian missiles until the Egyptians moved out of range of the fixed missile battery's and until the mobile ones were fully set up (expenditure was so heavy in missiles that the IAF managed to hit hard for a day or so until the Soviets flew in more missiles it took from warstocks in GSFG). The new "Saggers" were very effective in destroying the Israeli armour which had got complacent and attacked without Infantry. Their aim was to assault and capture the Sinai, dig in and destroy the IAF and Israeli armour as it counter attacked, while the other nations attacked around jerusulem and the Golan so splitting the IDF forces. Fortunately for the Israelis coordination and agreements between the various Arab nations was lacking so letting the Israelis have breathing space while initially Germany and France provided and shipped in replacement tanks and ammunition - when the press reporting made it difficult politically the US took over, stripping US units in Germany and also providing ARM's to deal with the AA network.
21:20 Regarding that Sweden bought a couple of East German t72:s for mobility tests and live fire tests. There was also serious attempts at selling T80U and M84 to Sweden where the T80U went as fas as a complete trial on swedish ground. They made som interesting discoveries to say the least. Firstly the mobility of the soviet tanks far exceded what the swedish defence planners thought possible. That realization gave a lot of people som serious head ache i would imagine. Secondly, the fire tests concluded that the t72 firing BM23 shot straight through the S-tank. The S-tank in turn had difficulty punching through the t72 frontally even with the longer 105 gun.
@@ret7army Why there is zero technology behind the armor of S-tank besides it being ~80° of slope and the longer 105 gun wasnt all the usefull because the original L7 is quite efficient and gets most of the possible power out of the rounds... for increased velocity in longer barrels you also need exess energy
@@xXxTripleHxXx That is most certainly the case aswell. The autoloader on the S-tank also put a limit on the lenght of the shell and thus the length of the penetrator. During most of its life cycle that wasn't an issue but it became one in its later years. The S-tank was still an amazing gun platform in so far as I have understood things and would have fared well in most engagement situation but it most definately started to hit its ceiling. It's interesting to note that the opinions on the S-tank was far from unanimous during its day. There were officers ctitizising it strongly and also officers who praised it.
I believe that The Chieftain also made a mistake in his claim that the non-export T-72's (I wish he clarified which variant) that were tested proved resillient against 105mm ammo, save for DU rounds. However, M774, M833 and M900 are all DU rounds, and the first two certainly had no chance of defeating a T-72B Obr. '89, even M829 and M829A1 failed to defeat the Kontakt-5 portions of the frontal armour. He makes it sound as though the 120's weren't also having trouble with the frontal armour, which they did.
Sweden buying BMPs was to finally give the large bulk of the large conscript army, the infantry brigades, some armor protection instead of just soft skin vehichles (or even older, bikes dragged by tractors). Sweden tested them, trained conscripts and had drawing up plans, TOE and stuff for a new type of infantry brigade. But post cold war was a time of increasingly dropping funding and in 2004 it was basically decided, in infinite wisdom, that it would be peace forverer and all the infantry brigades were scraped and the use for the BMP dissapeared.
@@Omegasupreme1078 It was a post-Cold War thing when lots of former-WP surplus was being sold off for dirt-cheap. Turks bought a bunch of BTRs, South Koreans bought a bunch of tanks and BMPs, Finns bought East German AKs... In the 90s if you needed some surplus gear and had a modest sum of money, your money could buy quite a few things. Also as a side note, former Yugoslavia and Finland bought lots of Soviet equipment during the Cold War, both developed countries but *not* members of WP.
@@Omegasupreme1078 Sweden's issue is that it knows it should arm itself because they have some troublesome people in their neighborhood, but they hate spending money on defense. So throughout the last hundred years, you find them doing funny things like buying modern G3 rifles in the 1970s, then handing out Mauser bolt-action rifles from before WW2 for many of the troops to use in peacetime because the G3 rifles would get damaged and worn out if they actually used them. The BMPs were sort of like that: they got them for a bargain, then proceeded to think they cost too much to keep running.
@@breadenthusiast-rr5vr IIRC the South Korean tanks were supplied by the Russian's as a means to clear debts that the Soviet Union had with SK. Essentially they were in lieu of hard currency.
The absolute smug look on the chieftains face when mentioning track tensioning in the sci-fi/fantasy series, made this whole video a veritable treat, as it were.
Basically, the Scorpion MBT is designed for a military policing an interstellar empire. Its designed to be fully airmobile, cheap to manufacture, and easy to maintain. It does not even need a dedicated crew. A Pelican can drop one into a hot zone and any marine or soldier on the ground can hop in and drive it. The fact that it only needs 1 or 2 crewmembers and these crew members can be the very marines its supporting makes it a very good infantry support platform. Marines get into a firefight, its a little more than they can handle, call for assistance, 2 minutes later a Scorpion is being plopped down a few feet away. Which is ultimately what the Scorpion was designed to do. The UNSC had not fought any major wars prior to the Human-Covenant War. The Scorpion was designed to be immune to small arms fire, resist anti tank rockets and support Marines fighting in counter insurgency operations. All of that said, why the tank is 60 tons, I will never know.
Question. If a pelican can hold the tank why does it only hold like 10 marines? I always wish to see a extended one that can hold up to 40 marines. Imagine how cool that would be
@@colonialf7047 if you have a ship that can carry a tank. Why not put guns on the ship and use it instead? - caboose, red vs blue Seriously though. In the novels there is a pelican that can carry a whole company of Spartans. Had an extended troop bay.
Finland has been using BMP-2s since late 1980s and have liked them enough to do full refit with things like thermal sights and computer links completed by 2019.
@Hevy Schlong Indeed that was the first 20 or so bought in the late 1980s, the next ones purchased in early 1990s were purchased mostly as to have have something useful to buy with the huge debt that the Soviet Union had to Finland. But my point was the continued upgrading of the BMPs now long time after that was true. The latest overhaul was a substantial and fairly expensive one and the last vehicles were completed last year. If the military did not like them they would more likely have spent the money elsewhere.
@Hevy Schlong As a comparison Finland did not choose to upgrade the t-72s, instead buying more Leopard 2s. Thus in the case of BMPs they seem to have been seen more favorably. But yes, of course it is cheaper to upgrade. But in the end you have to believe that the result is good enough to make an upgrade worthwhile.
When I was in the armored brigade and saw those BMP-2's bouncing around in the field, I smiled because I wasn't one of the jaegers inside of those things
@@Omegasupreme1078 Exactly! Stalking the (tank) protagonists from just over the hill. It doesn't have anybody to work as a forward observer, so it has to use direct-fire. There's just the sound of rotors, echoing around them, and the camera does that circular pan move that's supposed to make the audience dizzy. Then, it goes away, and they think they're safe, only for it to pop above the ridge line, and take it's first victim. The others run, too scared to shoot back, until they reach a valley that's too densely forested for the helicopter to reach them. But they know it's out there, and they're running low on fuel.
In regards to the DD tank landing question, my grandfather was a TC for the Sherwood Rangers, attached to the 8th armoured brigade, in a DD Sherman deployed for landing well up the coast from the main landing point, it seems that him and the rest of the rangers were due to land about an hour or so before the main British thrust and were essentially there to scout and flank the harder German defences. Unfortunately he was hit by shrapnel and had to turn back before he hit the beach, from what I gather very few of the DDs in this instance managed to actually land successfully. He had been a TC in the yeomanry since 1937 in Egypt and had been over there in the cavalry for about 5 years prior. Served as a Sherman TC in El Alamein and Tunisia and pretty much every major engagement for the 8th bridge in North Africa. I've read books and accounts on the North African campaign that mentions him attached to the LRDG in recon roles and described as a no nonsense veteran sergeant. All of this of course he had never mentioned right up until his death, and only came out by pure chance in trying to track down his service records and seeing his name pop up in accounts of the battle of El Alamein. The only thing he had ever told us was that he was in the North African cavalry.... Anyway for years I had wondered why this stupid DD tank was allowed to be used as so many of them failed to reach the shore and were plagued by problems and the thinking seems to be that if you could, even at high risk, sneak a few experienced tank crews down the quiet end of the beach, and cause all kinds of havoc to the German lines to support the rest of the troops, then these were the crews that you wanted. At some point I will try to visit the beach where his tank is just offshore still; supposedly shrapnel took out a chunk of his leg after bouncing down the hatch and his crew pulled him out and abandoned the tank, swimming back to the launch boat about 150 yards back. Ended up being discharged due to injury and spent the rest of his life regretting that he never made the landing and that he had let the rest of the Yeomanry down.
It is a bit late but I have read Tank Action which is a memoir of a TC in the sherwood rangers, in that book it seems to imply that the majority of DDs made it and were a great asset. It is only in the american landing zones I have seen reports of DDs being a disaster, however the conditions they were launched in were not the same.
My Uncle remembered when he was in Vietnam he was sent out on a patrol with couple or guys in a few jeeps he was on the Jeep of a 106mm recoilless rifle. They get to a crossroad and they look around and they see something they don't know if it's dead or alive but they know it's not friendly. He puts one round into it and just tells the driver to floor it out of there. They come back they see it still there, it looked like it's been burnt and has a hole that could match either a tank or their recoilless rifle.
Speaking of flame weapons, at my first duty station in the early '80s, we still had an M202 quad incendiary rocket launcher in the arms room. I don't think it ever came out except for the monthly inventory.
It seems to me that if you want to give a tank a secondary flame thrower role, an incendiary round for the main gun would be the best option. A small propelling charge throwing a thin walled incendiary round a few hundred metres would out range conventional flame throwers and the ammo load could be varied to suit circumstances.
On D-Day I'm certain that the initial landings took place at low tide. That was so that the obstacles would be visible and could be avoided by the landing craft carrying the troops. Larger landing craft could then use the beaches once lanes had been cleared through the obstacles, but that would take time and the troops would be concentrating on getting off the beach first. The DD drive Shermans would have been able to come ashore with less hassle and thus could accompany the initial wave.
they tried basically every way they could think of to get tanks ashore, with swimming tanks, and tank landing boats, anything to get armor on shore, neither way was very successful but 1 tank on a beach is better than no tanks on the beaches
@@AsbestosMuffins LCTs and LSTs are a much more reliable way to get armor to the beach. The DDs were cursed with insufficient freeboard to safely swim ashore in anything less than sea state glass, and were really too slow as well. There's a reason we use LCUs and LCACs today, and no swimming tanks.
At a cursory glance, the DD tanks seem to have been quite successful where they got ashore on time. For example, the relative difficulty at Juno beach on the sector where the DDs couldn’t be deployed vs where they were. Obviously there are a lot more factors to consider, but I don’t have (or know of) any sources that goes into that much detail of it. And the Powers That Be must have viewed them as effective as they were still being used in 1945 crossing the Rhine (and with the British deploying them to the Far East although the war ended before they went into action).
A good friend of mine's grandfather won the Navy Cross during D-Day by driving his LCT to the beach to deliver the tanks instead of letting them out in rough seas. His name was LT. Gilfert. He was also wounded that day. In a strange bit of history, he saved the bullet that struck him in the leg. I actually got to hold and examine the bullet. Talk about history coming to life...
Hey, I don't know if anyone has noticed but the actual T28 has been found and is currently in the process of being restored. It has already been cosmetically restored and they are trying to get the power pack working again. That would be a great tank for a Chieftain's Hatch episode.
On "what would be a good battle to study" There is a really good book that does a full review of the challenges that the IDF encountered during Yom Kippur 1973. It reviews the misconceptions that the IDF had of both the Syrian and Egyptian armies prewar. Also, reviews the failing of the IDF’s general staff to function as a cohesive and decisive force during the initial opening days of war. The name is written by Emanuel Sakal - Title Soldier in the Sinai: A General's Account of the Yom Kippur War
Well, My choices for horror film tanks: Monster: TOG or Churchill (which apparently had some highly remarkable off road capability). Not fast but un-nervingly relentless. Jock: Panther: Fast, looks good, charisma, a bit full of itself, high maintenance, glass Jaw/Sports injury (Transmission!) Pretty Girl: Covenanter? She looks good but she such is a bundle of complexes that she barely functions! Responsible girl: Sherman 75, Pz IV or T-34/76 Sensible Guy: Sherman 76 or T-34/85 Skeptic/Joker: Australian Sentinel.
If I recall correctly, there is a T-55 variant with a co-axial flamethrower, and the big advantage to the design was that it yields a flame tank that also has a main gun. Presumably that means that you can fight back if you encounter an enemy tank, though I am not sure that the reduced size of the fuel tank for the flamethrower is worth the trade off.
NLOS! A unit I was in at FT. Bliss, TX so many years ago in the late 80's was field testing a version of this. They could launch a missile and loiter about manually flying the missile looking for targets of opportunity. Helicopters and armored vehicles were it's intended targets.
A bit surprised the T10 Sherman with the tricycle mine rollers replacing the entire track and suspension didn't make the "most unholy-looking Sherman" list.
Missed the fact that yoiu already posted this excellent answer. Tanks in the city where they can drop flammables on you from highrise buildings - not to mention RPGs.
Speaking of scifi tanks, I was really disappointed when they revealed that they're going away from tracked Space Marine tanks in 40k for some oddly designed hovering crap.
@@TheChieftainsHatch It's called a Repulsor and it's sort of a modular hover heavy tank. It's in fact too heavy for its drive system and it sort of grinds along, crushing everything in front of it.
If I could go back, I want to see the "golden 1 in a Million" bullet that sank HMS Hood. Other then that, I would like to go back to any battle; ie, Normandy, Operation Market Garden, Battle of the Bulge, Stalingrad, etc; and count up all the unsung hero's that we don't know and probably will never know.
Drachinifel did answer the question about the DD tanks on D-Day in The Drydock Ep 119 (time 01.01.18) And in typical fashion, very thoughtfully and thoroughly in my opinion, so good outsourcing choice I think
Regarding the question, of about the Soviet Equipment in German use. These are infos I remember from several Panzermuseum Munster videos, therefore it´s possible that I remember some stuff wrong. What did the East Germans think about Soviet tanks, the only thing I know is from a talk Rolf Hilmes a former West German tank designer gave and he said, that the NVA soldiers had trouble with the small size of Soviet tanks, considering they were designed for much shorter Soviet soldiers. He also stated that he generally viewed the Soviet tanks as good for it´s intended purpose, but they wouldn´t fit the requirements for a NATO army.
correct. Major complaints were toxic fighting compartment liners (asbestos coating), toxic fumes of the main gun being vented into the fighting compartment without proper exhaust, fire hazard due to fuel tank placement, to low and cramped fighting compartments for western soldiers, horrible optics, horrible engine and transmision etc. all together with too large tollerances etc. that for th BMP Series. The T72 was fine even tho it needed a major update in optics, electronics etc and didnt fit into west german supply chains and doctrine
The G11's caseless ammo issues were largely down to how brittle/fragile the ammo was with (large) temperature swings changing the cohesiveness of the bonding adhesive within the powder, with the high rate of fire in burst mode, the rotating chamber block could break apart a caseless round and foul the action in a worst case scenario. It should be noted that these issues were solved and fixed before the initial pre-production batches that H&K made before the whole program was canned, they got it working perfectly fine, just had no money or political willpower to keep going.
Yeah, the caseless ammo is a great case of the baby being thrown out with the bath water. The problems with it were largely solved and the configuration was viable. But the ACR program that was funding the effort didn't care about caseless ammo -- they were trying to come up with solutions to fix aim error. When they concluded none of the approaches worked, they changed directions and went after high explosive airburst ammo. Caseless was left behind. Sadly, we tried to resurrect caseless under the LSAT program in the mid-2000s, but not enough of the Dynamit Nobel processes were recorded to capture exactly what had been done in the ammo development. Even calling back retired engineers from the original project couldn't close the gap -- so the caseless LSAT ammo never performed as well as the G11 caseless.
I only know goodwood as a race for old race cars up a hill. There were several entries on wikipedia for military operations with that name so I guess I was vietnam.
@@cpt_nordbart Operation Goodwood in WW2, British attack on Caen. If you do read up on it make sure you look at modern sources as there has been a real re-assessment on its effect and casualties.
Greek Military Officers were not very happy with the selection of BMP-1 from the Government, for the requirement for an IFV. They wanted new IFVs. Greece was one of the 3 original nations to design the ASCOD IFV. Greek Army wanted to replace M113 from front line units, with the IFV version of ASCOD. So the Army always wanted to get rid of BMP-1. They deliberately let the BMP-1 without any modernization, no AMMO for the main cannon and the coaxial MG. In the end, they converted BMP-1 to APC, installing an M2HB on top of the turret. Some BMP-1 were donated to Iraq, some were sold to Egypt. Some of the remaining BMP-1 were converted to SPAAGs, with the installation of the Zu-23-2 in place of the original turret. BMP-1 APCs were replaced with M113A2 from US stocks. Today Greeks want to get M2A2 ODS Bradleys from US Stocks, in order to replace M113A2 from units using Leo-2A4/6 MBTs.
5:12 I during BCT at Leonard Wood theres a group of old vehicles including an M48 and 5 M4s, one is an M4A1 with a coax flamethrower, really cool and it took me and my friend a while to figure out what it was
The June 6th D-day landing was done at low tide so the troop landing craft wouldn't have their bottoms ripped out. There were sappers that were assigned to blow the beach obstacles but were not to effective especially on Omaha Beach because of enemy fire.
As for US "technical development" during WWII: The US already had a widespread and deeply-rooted electronic and metallurgical industry (RCA, etc., and the US automobile industry) that had wide knowledge and experience with such things as vacuum tube tech, transmitters, receivers, amplifiers, and signal processing (IF portions of AM radios, for example) and handling various alloys in mass-produced steel-making (including armor-type steel using nickel and chromium, and, to a lesser extent, molybdenum and vanadium). US engines for automobiles were also mass-produced in huge numbers, so the "backbone" of most military self-propelled vehicle designs was already there at the start of WWII. Getting proper designs based on practical function and experience was a separate topic, but the US seems to have "lucked out" here too...
Back in the day, all officers were assigned an alternate specialty during their 9th year of service and would alternate between primary and alternate specialties the remainder of their career. I had an undergrad degree in Chemistry had been sent to NBC school by my unit as an Eltee and was Honor Grad and then served twice as company and twice as battalion NBC officer (additional duties). So guess what my secondary was....which led to a natural interest in flame tanks. First, the "POA-CWS-H5" was a response to Edgewood telling USARPAC it would take several years to develop and field such a vehicle. Armor and Chemical Staff Sections USARPAC got with their buddies at the machine shops at Pearl Harbor (remember the USMC had originated the request) and came up with a homebrewed design. POA-CWS-H5 stands for Pacific Oceans Areas (Nimitz' theater level command) -Chemical Warfare Service - Hawaiian Model 5. It's a bunker busting 105mm M4A3 HVSS with the coax flamegun. Used by the USMC on Okinawa IIRC and definitely in Korea and served in the USMC as the last surviving US combat Sherman until replaced by the M67 flame tank (USMC) and M132 "Zippo" (USA) in Vietnam. Both were retired post Vietnam as not fitting into the Eurocentric Manuever Warfare espoused by Air-Land Battle. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M67_Flame_Thrower_Tank en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M132_Armored_Flamethrower
No idea about the ex-NVA view on Eastern / Western armored vehicles, but every ex-NVA guy taken over by the Bundeswehr I've talked to mentioned how they want their AK back over the G3.
I don’t know exactly when during the Normandy landings different types of tanks were landed however I know the landings as a whole Took place on a rising tide, the beach obstacles were exposed above water and hindered the landing craft very little if at all. This was because the Germans had assumed the landings would take place at high Tide giving the infantry the shortest amount of distance to cross before reaching cover. But because the landing craft were designed to ground themselves on the beach they had to land on a rising tide otherwise they would not be able to Bring in the follow on units.
The Argies did attack 2nd Para with Napalm, but missed. Considering how much of the stuff was captured at Goose Green and Pebble Island. Not to mention all the supplies they had at home, I've long been surprised that the Argies didn't use it far more often. Even as an anti-ship weapon against the Royal Navy in San Carlos Water.
I'm sure someone has covered this already, but: Halo Scorpion exposed crewman was a balance thing for multiplayer. in single-player, the hatch is closed and the player takes no damage from incoming fire. the tank eventually just explodes once it has been shot enough. in multiplayer, the tank is invincible, and the driver takes damage, so you can kill someone out of the tank and take it to turn the attack around on the enemy.
Thanks Nick, I know as a dad that sleep with a young one is often hard to get. Appreciate your long hours and the patience of your wife in these matters.
An interesting battle to watch? Either one of the many historical battles where although the outcome is known the details aren’t known. Hastings perhaps. Or for mostly selfish motives the Saxon/Norse engagement supposedly at or near “Tettenhall” (which is nowadays part of Wolverhampton) that had a significant impact on the creation of a united England. If for no other reason than the site of the battle is uncertain, but going by the few surviving period accounts it could well have happened pretty much where I currently live. Or if looking for a reasonably well documented action involving tanks, following Medium Mk A “The Musical Box” on it’s 8 miles per hour (or less) 10 hour rampage behind German lines in 1918 might be interesting.
For the guy asking about Chinese armor, I’m gonna throw what I know at the question. China got a couple of M4 and m3/5 from the allies, which they used in the CBI. These tanks would again see use in the civil war after the war.
They also had two or three Japanese tanks that they recovered from a captured repair depot. There are still two of them in the People’s army military museum in Beijing. They are called “Hero Tanks”
I crewed the aircraft that was the test-bed 'mover' for the FOG-M in the 1980s. It was attached to a bomb rack on the belly of the fixed wing aircraft.
We swedes actually liked them, but it took some extensive renovation (remove asbestos for an example) and make the engines conform to swedish enviroment regulations. Then came FB2000 and ..well that was the end of that story. Edit: speaking off the BMP1
No one who later worked on CV90 had anything good to say about them when I was in (06). Nothing made in a Bulgarian tractor factory was ever going to compare favourably with Hägglunds of Örnsköldsvik. I only had some experience with the MTLBs (pbv 401) and they were....well, rubbish.
The Scorpion is a mishmash of various ideas that don't fit together. First I will say it has excellent depression and can shoot the ground directly in front of it. But from there, things get a bit strange. For example, it fires APHE, out of a smoothbore gun. That cannon is also a mere 90mm, a bit small for a tank stated to be an MBT. Though it can also travel at 60mph and has been seen taking part in cavalry actions. A major feat when you consider how wide the tracks are, the Scorpion having a ground pressure of ~4.4psi which is very little for a 66 metric ton tank. The hull is some sort of composite Titanium crematic armor, of ~2-3 inches thick based on in-game models. And it has one crew member to operate the tank. If you don't count the hull gunner (who is more exposed than the driver). Though if you're in a variant with the hull gunner you'll want someone manning that gun as you probably won't have a coaxial machine gun. So then with all this were does that leave us? Well first with an odd tank. It'd likely underperform for its role as an MBT. If it were lighter, and a bit smaller (Any or all dimensions) it might make for an interesting cavalry tank though as speed is definitely one of the things it does well. Overall I give it a D+. A lot of problems but there are worse tanks, even within the UNSC arsenal.
Question: How well do the modern smaller calibre cannons (for example the new 40mm warrior and Ajax) guns being fitted to modern IFVs compare to the 75, 76mm, 6lb'er, even up to the 88s of WW2?
On the views of Polish inadequacies "You can cetainly make the argument that the airforce didn't do them any credit." I'm no expert but to my knowledge the Poles fought as well as they did in the air as on the ground. I've heard claims that they shot down as many planes as they lost even with the obsolescence of thier aircraft and their numerical disadvantage. Contrary to popular belief the Poles did well to disperse aircraft properly and although the bombers performed poorly it's not an unusual trend when compared to other allied airforces in the early war. By all accounts they performed well as an airforce in exlie too.
@@lostalone9320 would share that suspicion if those numbers didn't appear to be widely corroborated. I don't believe that shooting down one enemy aircraft for each loss constitutes "matching" an opponent. For instance loosing a tiger with an experienced crew is in no way equivalent to loosing a sherman with a green crew. I simply see the view that the Polish army did well all considered yet the airforce did badly. Especially when the issues faced of numerical inferiority and obsolescence of equipment were much the same between the forces to be an unusual position to take.
Polish Bombers did as well as Fairey Battles did for the RAF in France in 1940 (IE Not very well). As you said, early war trend. Between Aircraft and AA defences, about 25% of the Luftwaffe seems to have been put out of action (though half that was airfield repairable). Polish manufacturers were selling a more advanced combat aircraft commercially to other nations, seems a bad idea, but if they did not have the money to spend those manufacturers need to stay afloat somehow. .
@@jon-paulfilkins7820 Polish "Los" Bombers were used by Romanians (Bulgarians too ?) later and were rather good - wrong doctrine and enemy air superiority had it's share in lack of success
We were selling P.24's and others in order to get funds. We had desighns and prototypes of fighters but the problem was getting a licence engine. The Hispano v12 was underpowered and caused delays. Gettin a Bristol engine was a problem, because the British wanted a ton of money for it - so a no go. The new fighter would be in the P-40 and Hurricane performence area, and we did good with Hurricanes during Battle for Britain. The fighters we did use did well when Germans decided to dogfight (were more manuverable) and shot down bf 109's so the Germans swiched to using speed to disengage and attack again. P-11's were too slow for such a tactic. As for the land war tactic that was because of the alliance with France - to show that we are engaged in more that some tiny skirmish (full on war) so the French would engage in full scale war against Germany ( we know how that went). If the French did things properly than they would have had little resistance on the west front and forced Germany to divert forces. Then the Soviets may have reconsidered attacking( or not - they may have attacked a few years later and we'd still be effed). At the end of the fights in Poland the Germans had used up most bombs for their bombers, a large part of their tanks and planes were out of commision and needed maitenence badly -so extrapolate what situation they woud be if our "allies" decided to "play war" for real. Germany would be defeted but Poland would be in a bad shape afterwards but I have no idea how long the fight in the west would take.
Hey Chieftain! regarding the Greek BMPs. While I havent served in the BMP1 Ost's that we got, I would like to point out that the role they're required to fulfill is different than what was intended for the vehicle. Mainly, it is equipped with the ZU-23-2 and given to units near the border with Turkey, in particular the island units. I dont have any solid information on what their role is supposed to be within the HAF, but rumour has it that they're designed to bring troops to the beach and then sink any invading landing craft. Should that be the case, I dont think that we're the most valuable source of information as we use our BMPs for a very *very* specific role which is unique to us and definitely not what the vehicle was intended to do. And now for something completely different, any views on the multitude of Greek Frankenstein tanks like the Leo2A6 with a 105, the aforementioned BMP with a ZU, or leonidas-2? they are weird vehicles, but when one thinks about it, they do fulfill their roles.
Hello my fellow Greek. I served in a tank unit in Lemnos and we had BMP's with the ZU-23-2. They were part of the recon battalion and they were close air defense. Unfortunately I didnt get to use it but I saw it firing at the range. After the shooting stopped I had the privilege of collecting the empty casings from the ground.
Most of ARVN Armor was M41's The main theatre of operation for the M41 was Viet-Nam. At first, it replaced the few M24 Chaffee inherited from the French in 1964. The M41A3 was first used by units of the ARVN in January 1965, followed-up by American vehicles with the UD deployment in 1965-66. The ARVN used the model intensively until the end of the war and appreciated the type as more adapted to their smaller stature, as well as handling and reliability. A Massive combined ARVN (1st Armor Brigade)/US (airborne and cavalry units) assault on Lam Son in Laos (Operation Lam Son 719) in February 1971 saw the M41s massively engaged, with a deep penetration and disrupted as intended the NVA supply lines in the area. This saw a tank battle, with 17 M41s knocking out 22 NVA tanks (6 T-54s and 16 PT-76s) for the loss of 5 M41s. In 1973, the ARVN still deployed about 200 M41s czcams.com/video/ImPk1NLD2ls/video.html czcams.com/video/wynjtGq98bw/video.html They got M48's late in the war The M48 Patton has the distinction of playing a unique role in an event that was destined to radically alter the conduct of armored warfare.[7] When US forces commenced redeployment operations, many of the M48A3 Pattons were turned over to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) forces, in particular creating the ARVN 20th Tank Regiment; which supplemented their M41 Walker Bulldog units. During the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) Easter Offensive in 1972, tank clashes between NVA T-54/PT-76 and ARVN M48/M41 units became commonplace. But on 23 April 1972, tankers of the 20th Tank Regiment were attacked by an NVA infantry-tank team, which was equipped with the new 9M14M Malyutka (NATO designation: Sagger) wire guided anti-tank missile. During this battle, one M48A3 Patton tank and one M113 Armored Cavalry Assault Vehicle (ACAV) were destroyed, becoming the first losses to the Sagger missile; losses that would echo on an even larger scale a year later during the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East in 1973.[7] The M48s performed admirably[8] in Vietnam in the infantry-support role. However, there were few actual tank versus tank battles. One was between the US 1-69th Armor and PT-76 light amphibious tanks of the NVA 202nd Armored Regiment near Ben Het in 1969.[7] The M48s provided adequate protection for its crew from small arms, mines, and rocket-propelled grenades. South Vietnamese M48s and M41s fought in the so-called Ho Chi Minh Offensive in 1975. In several incidents, the South Vietnamese Army successfully defeated NVA T-34 and T-55 tanks and even slowed the North's offensive. However since the United States Congress passed bans on the transfer of fuel and ammunition to South Vietnam, the American-made tanks were soon out of ammunition and fuel and were abandoned to the North Vietnamese Army in 1975 which put them in predictably short service of the Vietnamese People's Army after the war ended in May 1975. Yeah, it's a US, not an ARVN vehicle, but I love the way it illustrates "GI ingenuity" img.pr0gramm.com/2015/06/09/e1a7cdb34140b689.jpg And in a little known deployment, there was Kampfgruppe Hammer tanks-encyclopedia.com/coldwar/US/M41_Walker_Bulldog/M41A3_Bundeswehr.png
I have read a report on Line of Sight Anti Tank, LOSAT, Lockheed Martin, hyper ended 1999. Two insurmountable issues. It was wire guided, not fnf, taking too long and too much distance covered before capture. Also, ridiculous huge back blast danger zone on launch. System was mounted on Humvee, the idea being to provide light, cheap and deadly TD. Fast follow up shots were impossible, and, of course, a humvee doesn’t keep out a 125 mm she’ll.
Regarding the use of tanks in Vietnam, I recall in Lynne M. Black's memoir 'Whiskey Tango Foxtrot', tanks only came out during voting season and were referred to as 'voting machines'. You can probably deduce what they were used for.
Monster - Churchill Mk.III Jock - Marder II Pretty Girl - Carro Armato P 26/40 Responsible Girl - Panzer IV Ausf. F Skeptic Guy - Panzer III Ausf. L The monster is slow and lumbering, but has a nasty tendency to surprise the victims by suddenly appearing atop terrain where no one would have figured you could get a tank. The Pretty Girl goes first. The Jock, looking for revenge almost gets it with his big, brawny gun, but can't take the punishment the monster dishes out and gets whacked. The Skeptic Guy goes second last, distracting the monster by pinging APCBC off its armour to keep its attention off the Reasonable Girl. And, finally, the Reasonable Girl survives by using the Skeptic Guy's distraction to get her hands on some HEAT rounds and finish the job.
48:42 I had the same thought actually. We've had so many years of fighting small powers and insurgencies, a fight against Russians or Chinese could be a rude awakening.
Well I did engage a Hind-D with one gun round,,,in SIMNET,, during basic course in late 87. The upside was the "SIM" pilot was my platoon leader from 2d cav :P . We, me and the three other crew issued/worked a standard fire command and opened in 5 seconds and closed in 12 for a 1 shot kill. Dave was not amused (and the Hind folded its blades like a Wylie Coyote cartoon, then fell). Like I could make that up
Thank you for all the information and entertainment you provide for us, I would like to say I really enjoy your content and I especially like your tangent storys it realy help me soak in the information you give by relaxing my brain to the extent where I can recall your info when I see a picture of a tank or see a tank in a movie and I can remember what you said or commented on that tank or event and I thank you for that. And to answer your question about what format I prefer, scripted or unscripted, I definitely prefer unscripted, you tend to go on more tangents when are unscripted and I personally like like it.
He is starting to look like a tired, old Irish man. I am not saying that it is bad or poking fun as I am 34 and starting to notice the difference but, for good or bad, he is changing. Less relatable and cheary, more respectable, and knowledgeable. I like the "best dad ever" mug on the shelf :-)
A question I've seen a lot around the internet but never got an answer for: so from my understanding, the 76 mm M1 had the disadvantage of a smaller explosive charge compared to the 75 mm, because the shell body had to be stronger to resist the forces of being accelerated to the higher muzzle velocity of the gun. Why couldn't they design the HE shell with a reduced propellant charge to give it less muzzle velocity, and allow for a shell with more explosive filler?
They could, and sometimes it was done. The 17pr had such a reduced charge HE shell eventually created, for example. It does, however, come with aiming problems, especially at longer ranges.
12:25 "See thru armor" - a similar technology is on the F-35, with the addition that it can zoom in if needed and also puts a reticle with some data display over any target in the pilot's field of vision - so you might overlook a MiG-29 from a dozen miles if it is lower than your craft and blends into the ground, but if your gogles put a nice, background contrasting reticle around it... Oddly, ground targets are harder handle by sensor and computer systems, but "you got the idea"...
Napalm was used in 1991 in the Gulf War by the US Marines to ignite oil filled trenches, and in 1994 in Croatia, but I didn't see anything about what it was actually dropped on.
Yes we should have had FOG-M as our NLOS system long ago. It was easily mounted into wheel (HUMMER), or track (M-113) systems and gave the battlefield command a live data link to view through the seeker head acting as an electronic scout while in flight. It has dual anti-armor and anti-helicopter capabilities.
One thing about the Poles in WWII, they did a remarkable job considering the disparity in weight and shininess of metal. I mean, they were doing almost 1 to 1 kill ratios against what were state-of-the-art aircraft with planes that were of 1920's vintage.
The former NVA guys I spoke to said they liked the simplicity and ruggedness of soviet equipment. The BW guys liked the MIG 29, number of the helicopters.
The addition of full 360°x180° camera systems to a tank will also necessitate an additional crewman wedged in, probably beside the driver, to monitor the entire view and present any pertinent information to the gunner and commander in a usable format for coordination with the TP and battlefield systems. While such a system could be maintained as a rear echelon unit, reliance on it would require the capacity in at least 1/3 or more of the tanks in operation. It is simply too much workload for a TC to include with guiding his tank through battle. The up-side is such a crew member could be cubbieholed in a fixed location taking up very little space... like under the driver's cushion.
"Right, so you can fill your enemy full of .50 caliber holes, shred him to bits with explosives, or gut him with your bayonet, but setting him on fire is RIGHT OUT." - Advocates for More Humane Warfare
The Scorpion makes up for the Ground Pressure loss of having 4 treads, by making them like three times as wide as any modern tank. Spookums did a video the groundpressure going by official weight and the measurement of the treads is something absurd like 6.6psi. It's a wide bloody tank,
Based on your recommendation and the linked short story, I just bought Chronicles of the Old Guy. Thanks for the link, because I otherwise would not have gotten the spelling of his name right.
In Allied testing of German WWII armor, the Tiger B's turret was found to have a cramped gunner's position. The vehicle they were looking at had the early turret; how were the ergonomics within the serienturm? As a side note, what are your opinions on Tiger B overall? The general common opinion seems to be largely negative and riddled with criticisms on reliability, mobility, etc., yet much of the primary/secondary documentation I've read seems to be in stark contrast from an empirical standpoint. For example, readiness rates, while imperfect, show Tiger B in a positive position. The final drives, while still arguably the weakest link of the vehicle, utilized helical gears as opposed to the straight-cut spurs seen on Tiger I and Panther. Tactical mobility was on-par with if not superior to many other tanks of the time (particularly off-road due to superb floatation). Perhaps these would be best left as a subject for its own "opinion on King Tiger" video in the future, but I figure it best to ask! Thanks for all you do.
I have a friend who was a bradley gunner in the initial iraq invasion. He told me a story of him finding a MP40 and carrying it around for a while telling people it was a new experimental crew weapon. He got away with it until a british officer visited the base and busted him on it.
I heard they were still using M3A1 Grease Guns to vehicle crews in the 1990s, so it isn't entirely daft.
@@RedShocktrooperRST yes we were, sigh.
@@lostalone9320 Because they'd been out of production for a few decades by that point, with most of the M3A1s I imagine being Vietnam-era manufacture. The contemporary Infantry weapon was, if I remember my facts and figures properly, the M16A2 and they had recently adopted the CAR-15 as the M4 or something.
At least an MP40, which uses the same ammunition (the M3A1 was in 9x19 as opposed to the original .45), has some sort neatness factor and is functionally identical. Though I wouldn't want to have to scrounge up mags for it.
@@RedShocktrooperRST uh, the MP40 is .9mm and the M3 Grease Gun is .45 ACP...??
@@tacomas9602 I thought there was a rechambering of M3s to 9mm by at least Vietnam? If they were still in .45 come the 1990s, no wonder it's a "sigh".
"The patron saint of track tensioning"....Has a nice ring to it.
This calls for a small pendant on a chain.
His symbol would be a Tankers Bar.
I thought the patron saint of track tensioning was... saint... lots of swear words?
@@Hebdomad7 St Frickin?
yeah. its right up there with "significant emotional event" 🤣
Chieftain - just as an FYI, I'm sure I speak for most people on this channel - but never apologise for going off on Tangents.
The longer you ramble about Esoteric and interesting subjects, the happier I am
It’s so much fun watching a knowledgeable person talk about their expertise.
Moran is so humble, witty, and entertaining. Love these Q&As
Re: fighting the something less than the first team. Back in the early 90s an Air Force briefing team was making the rounds and showed up at NAVAIR to talk about aircraft losses in the Gulf War and projections for the future. The briefer had a slide showing the steadily declining sortie attrition rates from WWII through the Gulf War. He pointed to Vietnam and said we will never see even this level of attrition ever again. A contractor from in the back of the room spoke up with "I was a flight engineer in the 8th AF and let me tell you, you weren't exactly flying against the Luftwaffe." Like the Germans in 1939-41 the US military has fooled itself into thinking we would never again face peer/near peer competitor based on our recent successes.
point, a concern I have had for some time, we've gotten used to being on top and assume that we'll stay there ...
Quantity had a quality all of its own. And china for instance has plenty of the core technologies to build and produce modern weapons of war. They are not far off being first line forces, hopefully we can diffuse some of the global tension, although if shots were fired, the world's merchant marine would probably be the first casualty. (Although that has always been a sign of overconfidence in submariners... After all they suffer limited logistics)
@@glenmcgillivray4707 Not to be all rah-rah patriotic, but the US has something China doesn't have - a cadre of veterans from Iraq War 2 and Afghanistan.
@@thebog11 the only thing trump did right: first Republican in 30 years who took power and didn't start a war. Got a bit close near the end, but thankfully he didn't.
How we might regard a civil war or similar I can't say.
@@glenmcgillivray4707 I agree completely. The point I was trying to make was that the military China is trying to build is an untested one. Maybe they'll test it on Vietnam or Thailand or some minor neighbor.
To be fair about the 1973 Suez crossing, the Egyptians basically spent five years planning and rehearsing that one operation in ridiculous detail.... where things broke down was when there plan had worked and they had achieved their objectives, but they hadn't developed a follow-on Phase II and had to start improvising.
So it was literally a case of that one Plankton meme of 'I don't know, I didn't think I'd get this far'?
@@davidkoonce9075 Well the original plan was basically to grab a chunk of the Sinai back, fortify the crap out of it to hold it against counterattacks, and then wait for a ceasefire, with the political/diplomatic goal of showing the world that the Israelis could be beaten. That pretty much worked, and the Suez crossing is one of the all-time great feats of military engineering under fire, but the wheels came off when the Golan front collapsed and Syria started screaming for help, which forced the Egyptians to attempt to relieve some of the pressure on them with a further attack beyond what had been planned, and that turned into an unplanned battle of maneuver, which they lost.
It was not just an Egyptian attack, the Syrians, Jordanians along with allied troops sent to help were to attack from the other sides.
The Egyptians went for an attritional battle after crossing - digging in I protected supposedly mutually supporting positions to await the inevitable Israeli counter attack.
The IAF made desperate sorties losing aircraft heavily to Egyptian missiles until the Egyptians moved out of range of the fixed missile battery's and until the mobile ones were fully set up (expenditure was so heavy in missiles that the IAF managed to hit hard for a day or so until the Soviets flew in more missiles it took from warstocks in GSFG).
The new "Saggers" were very effective in destroying the Israeli armour which had got complacent and attacked without Infantry.
Their aim was to assault and capture the Sinai, dig in and destroy the IAF and Israeli armour as it counter attacked, while the other nations attacked around jerusulem and the Golan so splitting the IDF forces.
Fortunately for the Israelis coordination and agreements between the various Arab nations was lacking so letting the Israelis have breathing space while initially Germany and France provided and shipped in replacement tanks and ammunition - when the press reporting made it difficult politically the US took over, stripping US units in Germany and also providing ARM's to deal with the AA network.
@@chaz8758 “the IAF made desperate sorties losing aircraft heavily”
No
@@looinrims No what?
21:20 Regarding that Sweden bought a couple of East German t72:s for mobility tests and live fire tests. There was also serious attempts at selling T80U and M84 to Sweden where the T80U went as fas as a complete trial on swedish ground. They made som interesting discoveries to say the least. Firstly the mobility of the soviet tanks far exceded what the swedish defence planners thought possible. That realization gave a lot of people som serious head ache i would imagine. Secondly, the fire tests concluded that the t72 firing BM23 shot straight through the S-tank. The S-tank in turn had difficulty punching through the t72 frontally even with the longer 105 gun.
ouch, I would have hoped the S-tank would have fared better
@@ret7army Why there is zero technology behind the armor of S-tank besides it being ~80° of slope and the longer 105 gun wasnt all the usefull because the original L7 is quite efficient and gets most of the possible power out of the rounds... for increased velocity in longer barrels you also need exess energy
@@xXxTripleHxXx That is most certainly the case aswell. The autoloader on the S-tank also put a limit on the lenght of the shell and thus the length of the penetrator. During most of its life cycle that wasn't an issue but it became one in its later years. The S-tank was still an amazing gun platform in so far as I have understood things and would have fared well in most engagement situation but it most definately started to hit its ceiling.
It's interesting to note that the opinions on the S-tank was far from unanimous during its day. There were officers ctitizising it strongly and also officers who praised it.
I believe that The Chieftain also made a mistake in his claim that the non-export T-72's (I wish he clarified which variant) that were tested proved resillient against 105mm ammo, save for DU rounds.
However, M774, M833 and M900 are all DU rounds, and the first two certainly had no chance of defeating a T-72B Obr. '89, even M829 and M829A1 failed to defeat the Kontakt-5 portions of the frontal armour.
He makes it sound as though the 120's weren't also having trouble with the frontal armour, which they did.
@@JamesVDBosch yes. you are right. that is what i was about to write too. even the 120mm struggled. this lead to rheinmetall developing its 130mm.
Sweden buying BMPs was to finally give the large bulk of the large conscript army, the infantry brigades, some armor protection instead of just soft skin vehichles (or even older, bikes dragged by tractors). Sweden tested them, trained conscripts and had drawing up plans, TOE and stuff for a new type of infantry brigade. But post cold war was a time of increasingly dropping funding and in 2004 it was basically decided, in infinite wisdom, that it would be peace forverer and all the infantry brigades were scraped and the use for the BMP dissapeared.
SWEDEN YES
@@FeedMeMister I always wondered about that... very rarely did non-WP developed countries buy Soviet weapons.
@@Omegasupreme1078 It was a post-Cold War thing when lots of former-WP surplus was being sold off for dirt-cheap. Turks bought a bunch of BTRs, South Koreans bought a bunch of tanks and BMPs, Finns bought East German AKs... In the 90s if you needed some surplus gear and had a modest sum of money, your money could buy quite a few things.
Also as a side note, former Yugoslavia and Finland bought lots of Soviet equipment during the Cold War, both developed countries but *not* members of WP.
@@Omegasupreme1078 Sweden's issue is that it knows it should arm itself because they have some troublesome people in their neighborhood, but they hate spending money on defense. So throughout the last hundred years, you find them doing funny things like buying modern G3 rifles in the 1970s, then handing out Mauser bolt-action rifles from before WW2 for many of the troops to use in peacetime because the G3 rifles would get damaged and worn out if they actually used them. The BMPs were sort of like that: they got them for a bargain, then proceeded to think they cost too much to keep running.
@@breadenthusiast-rr5vr IIRC the South Korean tanks were supplied by the Russian's as a means to clear debts that the Soviet Union had with SK. Essentially they were in lieu of hard currency.
Learning that the chieftain is a red vs blue fan has made my day
Absolutely, it’s incredible.
He made a reference to RvB during Ian’s QnA with him
@Hevy Schlong Forgotten Weapons QnA #36, 8:35. They’re talking about hull mounted mg’s, and he makes the reference there
The absolute smug look on the chieftains face when mentioning track tensioning in the sci-fi/fantasy series, made this whole video a veritable treat, as it were.
"Cast a Tank Horror Film"
surely that would be:
British weapons procurement process
Oh it's no worse than most other nations - all have their disasters and massive wastes of money.
ELBONIA: THE MOVIE...
@@chaz8758 how many nations adopted the or equivalent of L85? *shivers*
Basically, the Scorpion MBT is designed for a military policing an interstellar empire. Its designed to be fully airmobile, cheap to manufacture, and easy to maintain. It does not even need a dedicated crew. A Pelican can drop one into a hot zone and any marine or soldier on the ground can hop in and drive it. The fact that it only needs 1 or 2 crewmembers and these crew members can be the very marines its supporting makes it a very good infantry support platform. Marines get into a firefight, its a little more than they can handle, call for assistance, 2 minutes later a Scorpion is being plopped down a few feet away. Which is ultimately what the Scorpion was designed to do. The UNSC had not fought any major wars prior to the Human-Covenant War. The Scorpion was designed to be immune to small arms fire, resist anti tank rockets and support Marines fighting in counter insurgency operations. All of that said, why the tank is 60 tons, I will never know.
"easy to maintain" - With four tracks?
@@maverick8697 I never said it was a perfect plan.
Question. If a pelican can hold the tank why does it only hold like 10 marines? I always wish to see a extended one that can hold up to 40 marines. Imagine how cool that would be
@@colonialf7047 if you have a ship that can carry a tank. Why not put guns on the ship and use it instead? - caboose, red vs blue
Seriously though. In the novels there is a pelican that can carry a whole company of Spartans. Had an extended troop bay.
@@Avalanche041 ah that makes sense. I read only a couple of those
Tank is a Scotsman - brutal, but has skirts.
lol!! :D
Hm. Will an M1's turbine drink whiskey or cough and sputter like a b*tch?
@@davidcool5189 If it burns it runs.
Finland has been using BMP-2s since late 1980s and have liked them enough to do full refit with things like thermal sights and computer links completed by 2019.
@Hevy Schlong Indeed that was the first 20 or so bought in the late 1980s, the next ones purchased in early 1990s were purchased mostly as to have have something useful to buy with the huge debt that the Soviet Union had to Finland. But my point was the continued upgrading of the BMPs now long time after that was true. The latest overhaul was a substantial and fairly expensive one and the last vehicles were completed last year. If the military did not like them they would more likely have spent the money elsewhere.
@Hevy Schlong As a comparison Finland did not choose to upgrade the t-72s, instead buying more Leopard 2s. Thus in the case of BMPs they seem to have been seen more favorably. But yes, of course it is cheaper to upgrade. But in the end you have to believe that the result is good enough to make an upgrade worthwhile.
When I was in the armored brigade and saw those BMP-2's bouncing around in the field, I smiled because I wasn't one of the jaegers inside of those things
Didn't Finland buy a lot of equipment specifically from the East German yard sale? T-72's, BMP-1's, artillery, and all kinds of miscellaneous gear.
@@rautavaara9194 Yes, and if I remember correctly, Polish tanks too.
26:13, Flers-Courcelette, no question.
The monster in a tank-themed horror movie would be an A-10 Fairchild. In the sequel, it would be an AH-64.
T-90A with the red eyes would be the perfect monster tank antagonist
The Apache could almost be something like a xenomorph out of Alien....
@@Omegasupreme1078 Exactly! Stalking the (tank) protagonists from just over the hill. It doesn't have anybody to work as a forward observer, so it has to use direct-fire. There's just the sound of rotors, echoing around them, and the camera does that circular pan move that's supposed to make the audience dizzy. Then, it goes away, and they think they're safe, only for it to pop above the ridge line, and take it's first victim. The others run, too scared to shoot back, until they reach a valley that's too densely forested for the helicopter to reach them. But they know it's out there, and they're running low on fuel.
Brrrrt 'nuf said lol
In regards to the DD tank landing question, my grandfather was a TC for the Sherwood Rangers, attached to the 8th armoured brigade, in a DD Sherman deployed for landing well up the coast from the main landing point, it seems that him and the rest of the rangers were due to land about an hour or so before the main British thrust and were essentially there to scout and flank the harder German defences. Unfortunately he was hit by shrapnel and had to turn back before he hit the beach, from what I gather very few of the DDs in this instance managed to actually land successfully.
He had been a TC in the yeomanry since 1937 in Egypt and had been over there in the cavalry for about 5 years prior. Served as a Sherman TC in El Alamein and Tunisia and pretty much every major engagement for the 8th bridge in North Africa. I've read books and accounts on the North African campaign that mentions him attached to the LRDG in recon roles and described as a no nonsense veteran sergeant. All of this of course he had never mentioned right up until his death, and only came out by pure chance in trying to track down his service records and seeing his name pop up in accounts of the battle of El Alamein. The only thing he had ever told us was that he was in the North African cavalry....
Anyway for years I had wondered why this stupid DD tank was allowed to be used as so many of them failed to reach the shore and were plagued by problems and the thinking seems to be that if you could, even at high risk, sneak a few experienced tank crews down the quiet end of the beach, and cause all kinds of havoc to the German lines to support the rest of the troops, then these were the crews that you wanted.
At some point I will try to visit the beach where his tank is just offshore still; supposedly shrapnel took out a chunk of his leg after bouncing down the hatch and his crew pulled him out and abandoned the tank, swimming back to the launch boat about 150 yards back. Ended up being discharged due to injury and spent the rest of his life regretting that he never made the landing and that he had let the rest of the Yeomanry down.
It is a bit late but I have read Tank Action which is a memoir of a TC in the sherwood rangers, in that book it seems to imply that the majority of DDs made it and were a great asset. It is only in the american landing zones I have seen reports of DDs being a disaster, however the conditions they were launched in were not the same.
Lots of Americans suddenly discovering Cpt Scarlet, excellent
And Dads Army
@@davehopkin9502 We're dooooomed
SPECTRUM is green!
@@cirian75 WE now need an inside Jones the Butchers Van
🎶”Done, done, done, done, done, done.......dara.... “🎶.
One for the teenagers there.
The fact that Chieftain can comment on pop culture tanks makes me like this channel more and more.
My Uncle remembered when he was in Vietnam he was sent out on a patrol with couple or guys in a few jeeps he was on the Jeep of a 106mm recoilless rifle. They get to a crossroad and they look around and they see something they don't know if it's dead or alive but they know it's not friendly. He puts one round into it and just tells the driver to floor it out of there. They come back they see it still there, it looked like it's been burnt and has a hole that could match either a tank or their recoilless rifle.
Speaking of flame weapons, at my first duty station in the early '80s, we still had an M202 quad incendiary rocket launcher in the arms room. I don't think it ever came out except for the monthly inventory.
Or after you watched Schwarzenegger in "Commando"!
Chiefie seems to have missed the much more recent use of Mk. 77 "napalm" ordnance by the USMC in 2003/4
It seems to me that if you want to give a tank a secondary flame thrower role, an incendiary round for the main gun would be the best option. A small propelling charge throwing a thin walled incendiary round a few hundred metres would out range conventional flame throwers and the ammo load could be varied to suit circumstances.
On D-Day I'm certain that the initial landings took place at low tide. That was so that the obstacles would be visible and could be avoided by the landing craft carrying the troops. Larger landing craft could then use the beaches once lanes had been cleared through the obstacles, but that would take time and the troops would be concentrating on getting off the beach first. The DD drive Shermans would have been able to come ashore with less hassle and thus could accompany the initial wave.
Yes, the DDs were intended to go ashore with the first wave of infantry, with the LCTs to follow.
they tried basically every way they could think of to get tanks ashore, with swimming tanks, and tank landing boats, anything to get armor on shore, neither way was very successful but 1 tank on a beach is better than no tanks on the beaches
@@AsbestosMuffins LCTs and LSTs are a much more reliable way to get armor to the beach. The DDs were cursed with insufficient freeboard to safely swim ashore in anything less than sea state glass, and were really too slow as well.
There's a reason we use LCUs and LCACs today, and no swimming tanks.
At a cursory glance, the DD tanks seem to have been quite successful where they got ashore on time. For example, the relative difficulty at Juno beach on the sector where the DDs couldn’t be deployed vs where they were. Obviously there are a lot more factors to consider, but I don’t have (or know of) any sources that goes into that much detail of it.
And the Powers That Be must have viewed them as effective as they were still being used in 1945 crossing the Rhine (and with the British deploying them to the Far East although the war ended before they went into action).
A good friend of mine's grandfather won the Navy Cross during D-Day by driving his LCT to the beach to deliver the tanks instead of letting them out in rough seas. His name was LT. Gilfert. He was also wounded that day. In a strange bit of history, he saved the bullet that struck him in the leg. I actually got to hold and examine the bullet. Talk about history coming to life...
Hey, I don't know if anyone has noticed but the actual T28 has been found and is currently in the process of being restored. It has already been cosmetically restored and they are trying to get the power pack working again. That would be a great tank for a Chieftain's Hatch episode.
On "what would be a good battle to study" There is a really good book that does a full review of the challenges that the IDF encountered during Yom Kippur 1973. It reviews the misconceptions that the IDF had of both the Syrian and Egyptian armies prewar. Also, reviews the failing of the IDF’s general staff to function as a cohesive and decisive force during the initial opening days of war. The name is written by Emanuel Sakal - Title Soldier in the Sinai: A General's Account of the Yom Kippur War
Well, My choices for horror film tanks:
Monster: TOG or Churchill (which apparently had some highly remarkable off road capability). Not fast but un-nervingly relentless.
Jock: Panther: Fast, looks good, charisma, a bit full of itself, high maintenance, glass Jaw/Sports injury (Transmission!)
Pretty Girl: Covenanter? She looks good but she such is a bundle of complexes that she barely functions!
Responsible girl: Sherman 75, Pz IV or T-34/76
Sensible Guy: Sherman 76 or T-34/85
Skeptic/Joker: Australian Sentinel.
Sentinel is busy attempting to show covenanter the "ropes" when they're taken out simultaneously by the monster. Not thinking TOG, maybe T14/M6?
"I'll be doing one in November..."
"oh cool. soon"
"... of next year"
"less soon"
The Chieftan quoting Caboose from Red vs Blue made my week.
If I recall correctly, there is a T-55 variant with a co-axial flamethrower, and the big advantage to the design was that it yields a flame tank that also has a main gun. Presumably that means that you can fight back if you encounter an enemy tank, though I am not sure that the reduced size of the fuel tank for the flamethrower is worth the trade off.
Question for next Q&A: Origin of the "Oh no, the Tank is on fire!"
NLOS! A unit I was in at FT. Bliss, TX so many years ago in the late 80's was field testing a version of this.
They could launch a missile and loiter about manually flying the missile looking for targets of opportunity.
Helicopters and armored vehicles were it's intended targets.
A bit surprised the T10 Sherman with the tricycle mine rollers replacing the entire track and suspension didn't make the "most unholy-looking Sherman" list.
Good example of how not to use tanks - Russian attack on Grozny December 31, 1994.
Missed the fact that yoiu already posted this excellent answer. Tanks in the city where they can drop flammables on you from highrise buildings - not to mention RPGs.
@@thomaslinton1001Or IEDs.
Speaking of scifi tanks, I was really disappointed when they revealed that they're going away from tracked Space Marine tanks in 40k for some oddly designed hovering crap.
No more Land Raiders and Rhinos?
@@TheChieftainsHatch It's called a Repulsor and it's sort of a modular hover heavy tank. It's in fact too heavy for its drive system and it sort of grinds along, crushing everything in front of it.
@@1tsCh3m must be time to copy Hammers Slammers I guess.
Except that the "land speeder" replacement is a 4 wheeled dune buggy.
The best sci-fi tanks were Keith Laumer's BOLO series.
If I could go back, I want to see the "golden 1 in a Million" bullet that sank HMS Hood. Other then that, I would like to go back to any battle; ie, Normandy, Operation Market Garden, Battle of the Bulge, Stalingrad, etc; and count up all the unsung hero's that we don't know and probably will never know.
Drachinifel did answer the question about the DD tanks on D-Day in The Drydock Ep 119 (time 01.01.18)
And in typical fashion, very thoughtfully and thoroughly in my opinion, so good outsourcing choice I think
Regarding the question, of about the Soviet Equipment in German use.
These are infos I remember from several Panzermuseum Munster videos, therefore it´s possible that I remember some stuff wrong.
What did the East Germans think about Soviet tanks, the only thing I know is from a talk Rolf Hilmes a former West German tank designer gave and he said, that the NVA soldiers had trouble with the small size of Soviet tanks, considering they were designed for much shorter Soviet soldiers.
He also stated that he generally viewed the Soviet tanks as good for it´s intended purpose, but they wouldn´t fit the requirements for a NATO army.
correct.
Major complaints were toxic fighting compartment liners (asbestos coating), toxic fumes of the main gun being vented into the fighting compartment without proper exhaust, fire hazard due to fuel tank placement, to low and cramped fighting compartments for western soldiers, horrible optics, horrible engine and transmision etc. all together with too large tollerances etc.
that for th BMP Series.
The T72 was fine even tho it needed a major update in optics, electronics etc and didnt fit into west german supply chains and doctrine
The G11's caseless ammo issues were largely down to how brittle/fragile the ammo was with (large) temperature swings changing the cohesiveness of the bonding adhesive within the powder, with the high rate of fire in burst mode, the rotating chamber block could break apart a caseless round and foul the action in a worst case scenario. It should be noted that these issues were solved and fixed before the initial pre-production batches that H&K made before the whole program was canned, they got it working perfectly fine, just had no money or political willpower to keep going.
Yeah, the caseless ammo is a great case of the baby being thrown out with the bath water. The problems with it were largely solved and the configuration was viable. But the ACR program that was funding the effort didn't care about caseless ammo -- they were trying to come up with solutions to fix aim error. When they concluded none of the approaches worked, they changed directions and went after high explosive airburst ammo. Caseless was left behind. Sadly, we tried to resurrect caseless under the LSAT program in the mid-2000s, but not enough of the Dynamit Nobel processes were recorded to capture exactly what had been done in the ammo development. Even calling back retired engineers from the original project couldn't close the gap -- so the caseless LSAT ammo never performed as well as the G11 caseless.
Not sure if it counts, if Goodwood doesn't count, but Grozny 95 has to be one the hardest 'do not do this' tank employments.
I only know goodwood as a race for old race cars up a hill. There were several entries on wikipedia for military operations with that name so I guess I was vietnam.
@@cpt_nordbart Operation Goodwood in WW2, British attack on Caen. If you do read up on it make sure you look at modern sources as there has been a real re-assessment on its effect and casualties.
Greek Military Officers were not very happy with the selection of BMP-1 from the Government, for the requirement for an IFV. They wanted new IFVs. Greece was one of the 3 original nations to design the ASCOD IFV. Greek Army wanted to replace M113 from front line units, with the IFV version of ASCOD. So the Army always wanted to get rid of BMP-1. They deliberately let the BMP-1 without any modernization, no AMMO for the main cannon and the coaxial MG. In the end, they converted BMP-1 to APC, installing an M2HB on top of the turret. Some BMP-1 were donated to Iraq, some were sold to Egypt. Some of the remaining BMP-1 were converted to SPAAGs, with the installation of the Zu-23-2 in place of the original turret. BMP-1 APCs were replaced with M113A2 from US stocks. Today Greeks want to get M2A2 ODS Bradleys from US Stocks, in order to replace M113A2 from units using Leo-2A4/6 MBTs.
5:12 I during BCT at Leonard Wood theres a group of old vehicles including an M48 and 5 M4s, one is an M4A1 with a coax flamethrower, really cool and it took me and my friend a while to figure out what it was
The June 6th D-day landing was done at low tide so the troop landing craft wouldn't have their bottoms ripped out. There were sappers that were assigned to blow the beach obstacles but were not to effective especially on Omaha Beach because of enemy fire.
In an Apocalypse party, always have:
Someone who can sew.
Someone who can ID/collect food.
Someone who can find/build safe shelter.
Totally agree with food and shelter. I would have a medic in the team too... I guess that person can do all the patching, be it people or clothing.
@@philipbossy4834 Ideally, everyone in the group should have at least first aid training.
And cross training.
@@ScottKenny1978 Oh yes.
As for US "technical development" during WWII: The US already had a widespread and deeply-rooted electronic and metallurgical industry (RCA, etc., and the US automobile industry) that had wide knowledge and experience with such things as vacuum tube tech, transmitters, receivers, amplifiers, and signal processing (IF portions of AM radios, for example) and handling various alloys in mass-produced steel-making (including armor-type steel using nickel and chromium, and, to a lesser extent, molybdenum and vanadium). US engines for automobiles were also mass-produced in huge numbers, so the "backbone" of most military self-propelled vehicle designs was already there at the start of WWII. Getting proper designs based on practical function and experience was a separate topic, but the US seems to have "lucked out" here too...
Back in the day, all officers were assigned an alternate specialty during their 9th year of service and would alternate between primary and alternate specialties the remainder of their career. I had an undergrad degree in Chemistry had been sent to NBC school by my unit as an Eltee and was Honor Grad and then served twice as company and twice as battalion NBC officer (additional duties). So guess what my secondary was....which led to a natural interest in flame tanks. First, the "POA-CWS-H5" was a response to Edgewood telling USARPAC it would take several years to develop and field such a vehicle. Armor and Chemical Staff Sections USARPAC got with their buddies at the machine shops at Pearl Harbor (remember the USMC had originated the request) and came up with a homebrewed design. POA-CWS-H5 stands for Pacific Oceans Areas (Nimitz' theater level command) -Chemical Warfare Service - Hawaiian Model 5. It's a bunker busting 105mm M4A3 HVSS with the coax flamegun. Used by the USMC on Okinawa IIRC and definitely in Korea and served in the USMC as the last surviving US combat Sherman until replaced by the M67 flame tank (USMC) and M132 "Zippo" (USA) in Vietnam. Both were retired post Vietnam as not fitting into the Eurocentric Manuever Warfare espoused by Air-Land Battle.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M67_Flame_Thrower_Tank
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M132_Armored_Flamethrower
No idea about the ex-NVA view on Eastern / Western armored vehicles, but every ex-NVA guy taken over by the Bundeswehr I've talked to mentioned how they want their AK back over the G3.
I don’t know exactly when during the Normandy landings different types of tanks were landed however I know the landings as a whole Took place on a rising tide, the beach obstacles were exposed above water and hindered the landing craft very little if at all. This was because the Germans had assumed the landings would take place at high Tide giving the infantry the shortest amount of distance to cross before reaching cover. But because the landing craft were designed to ground themselves on the beach they had to land on a rising tide otherwise they would not be able to Bring in the follow on units.
The Argies did attack 2nd Para with Napalm, but missed. Considering how much of the stuff was captured at Goose Green and Pebble Island. Not to mention all the supplies they had at home, I've long been surprised that the Argies didn't use it far more often.
Even as an anti-ship weapon against the Royal Navy in San Carlos Water.
That "the old guy" story was amusing.
I've just bought the book on the basis of that story
Tall Tanker man is back!
I love your videos.
You made me join your Patreon as I love your channel even if I do not understand most of what you talk about, but I am going to learn.
I'm sure someone has covered this already, but:
Halo Scorpion exposed crewman was a balance thing for multiplayer. in single-player, the hatch is closed and the player takes no damage from incoming fire. the tank eventually just explodes once it has been shot enough.
in multiplayer, the tank is invincible, and the driver takes damage, so you can kill someone out of the tank and take it to turn the attack around on the enemy.
That was both interesting and informative. Thanks for burning the midnight oil and sticking with it!
Big fan Mr chieftain keep on keeping on
The Last Girl (sensible girl) would obviously be the Sherman. Whereas the pretty girl would be something like a Panther, that constantly breaks down.
Thanks Nick, I know as a dad that sleep with a young one is often hard to get. Appreciate your long hours and the patience of your wife in these matters.
Ome flamethrower used on Shermans was the PAO, a NAVY weapon.
An interesting battle to watch? Either one of the many historical battles where although the outcome is known the details aren’t known. Hastings perhaps. Or for mostly selfish motives the Saxon/Norse engagement supposedly at or near “Tettenhall” (which is nowadays part of Wolverhampton) that had a significant impact on the creation of a united England. If for no other reason than the site of the battle is uncertain, but going by the few surviving period accounts it could well have happened pretty much where I currently live.
Or if looking for a reasonably well documented action involving tanks, following Medium Mk A “The Musical Box” on it’s 8 miles per hour (or less) 10 hour rampage behind German lines in 1918 might be interesting.
For the guy asking about Chinese armor, I’m gonna throw what I know at the question. China got a couple of M4 and m3/5 from the allies, which they used in the CBI. These tanks would again see use in the civil war after the war.
They also had two or three Japanese tanks that they recovered from a captured repair depot. There are still two of them in the People’s army military museum in Beijing. They are called “Hero Tanks”
I crewed the aircraft that was the test-bed 'mover' for the FOG-M in the 1980s. It was attached to a bomb rack on the belly of the fixed wing aircraft.
We swedes actually liked them, but it took some extensive renovation (remove asbestos for an example) and make the engines conform to swedish enviroment regulations. Then came FB2000 and ..well that was the end of that story.
Edit: speaking off the BMP1
No one who later worked on CV90 had anything good to say about them when I was in (06). Nothing made in a Bulgarian tractor factory was ever going to compare favourably with Hägglunds of Örnsköldsvik. I only had some experience with the MTLBs (pbv 401) and they were....well, rubbish.
@@903lew I dont say that the soldiers liked them. I say that FMV liked them :D And FMV likes nothing good
Myths of British Armour, a collaboration with David Fletcher would be _amazing_ , might be workable if/when Covid buggers off?
The Scorpion is a mishmash of various ideas that don't fit together. First I will say it has excellent depression and can shoot the ground directly in front of it.
But from there, things get a bit strange. For example, it fires APHE, out of a smoothbore gun. That cannon is also a mere 90mm, a bit small for a tank stated to be an MBT. Though it can also travel at 60mph and has been seen taking part in cavalry actions. A major feat when you consider how wide the tracks are, the Scorpion having a ground pressure of ~4.4psi which is very little for a 66 metric ton tank. The hull is some sort of composite Titanium crematic armor, of ~2-3 inches thick based on in-game models. And it has one crew member to operate the tank. If you don't count the hull gunner (who is more exposed than the driver). Though if you're in a variant with the hull gunner you'll want someone manning that gun as you probably won't have a coaxial machine gun.
So then with all this were does that leave us? Well first with an odd tank. It'd likely underperform for its role as an MBT. If it were lighter, and a bit smaller (Any or all dimensions) it might make for an interesting cavalry tank though as speed is definitely one of the things it does well. Overall I give it a D+. A lot of problems but there are worse tanks, even within the UNSC arsenal.
Question: How well do the modern smaller calibre cannons (for example the new 40mm warrior and Ajax) guns being fitted to modern IFVs compare to the 75, 76mm, 6lb'er, even up to the 88s of WW2?
On the views of Polish inadequacies
"You can cetainly make the argument that the airforce didn't do them any credit."
I'm no expert but to my knowledge the Poles fought as well as they did in the air as on the ground. I've heard claims that they shot down as many planes as they lost even with the obsolescence of thier aircraft and their numerical disadvantage.
Contrary to popular belief the Poles did well to disperse aircraft properly and although the bombers performed poorly it's not an unusual trend when compared to other allied airforces in the early war. By all accounts they performed well as an airforce in exlie too.
@@lostalone9320 would share that suspicion if those numbers didn't appear to be widely corroborated.
I don't believe that shooting down one enemy aircraft for each loss constitutes "matching" an opponent. For instance loosing a tiger with an experienced crew is in no way equivalent to loosing a sherman with a green crew.
I simply see the view that the Polish army did well all considered yet the airforce did badly. Especially when the issues faced of numerical inferiority and obsolescence of equipment were much the same between the forces to be an unusual position to take.
Polish Bombers did as well as Fairey Battles did for the RAF in France in 1940 (IE Not very well). As you said, early war trend. Between Aircraft and AA defences, about 25% of the Luftwaffe seems to have been put out of action (though half that was airfield repairable). Polish manufacturers were selling a more advanced combat aircraft commercially to other nations, seems a bad idea, but if they did not have the money to spend those manufacturers need to stay afloat somehow. .
@@jon-paulfilkins7820 Sell of P.24 was dictated more by "we have superior plane just behind the corner" in form of P.50
@@jon-paulfilkins7820 Polish "Los" Bombers were used by Romanians (Bulgarians too ?) later and were rather good - wrong doctrine and enemy air superiority had it's share in lack of success
We were selling P.24's and others in order to get funds. We had desighns and prototypes of fighters but the problem was getting a licence engine. The Hispano v12 was underpowered and caused delays. Gettin a Bristol engine was a problem, because the British wanted a ton of money for it - so a no go. The new fighter would be in the P-40 and Hurricane performence area, and we did good with Hurricanes during Battle for Britain. The fighters we did use did well when Germans decided to dogfight (were more manuverable) and shot down bf 109's so the Germans swiched to using speed to disengage and attack again. P-11's were too slow for such a tactic. As for the land war tactic that was because of the alliance with France - to show that we are engaged in more that some tiny skirmish (full on war) so the French would engage in full scale war against Germany ( we know how that went). If the French did things properly than they would have had little resistance on the west front and forced Germany to divert forces. Then the Soviets may have reconsidered attacking( or not - they may have attacked a few years later and we'd still be effed). At the end of the fights in Poland the Germans had used up most bombs for their bombers, a large part of their tanks and planes were out of commision and needed maitenence badly -so extrapolate what situation they woud be if our "allies" decided to "play war" for real. Germany would be defeted but Poland would be in a bad shape afterwards but I have no idea how long the fight in the west would take.
Hey Chieftain! regarding the Greek BMPs. While I havent served in the BMP1 Ost's that we got, I would like to point out that the role they're required to fulfill is different than what was intended for the vehicle. Mainly, it is equipped with the ZU-23-2 and given to units near the border with Turkey, in particular the island units. I dont have any solid information on what their role is supposed to be within the HAF, but rumour has it that they're designed to bring troops to the beach and then sink any invading landing craft. Should that be the case, I dont think that we're the most valuable source of information as we use our BMPs for a very *very* specific role which is unique to us and definitely not what the vehicle was intended to do. And now for something completely different, any views on the multitude of Greek Frankenstein tanks like the Leo2A6 with a 105, the aforementioned BMP with a ZU, or leonidas-2? they are weird vehicles, but when one thinks about it, they do fulfill their roles.
Hello my fellow Greek. I served in a tank unit in Lemnos and we had BMP's with the ZU-23-2. They were part of the recon battalion and they were close air defense. Unfortunately I didnt get to use it but I saw it firing at the range. After the shooting stopped I had the privilege of collecting the empty casings from the ground.
Most of ARVN Armor was M41's
The main theatre of operation for the M41 was Viet-Nam. At first, it replaced the few M24 Chaffee inherited from the French in 1964. The M41A3 was first used by units of the ARVN in January 1965, followed-up by American vehicles with the UD deployment in 1965-66. The ARVN used the model intensively until the end of the war and appreciated the type as more adapted to their smaller stature, as well as handling and reliability.
A Massive combined ARVN (1st Armor Brigade)/US (airborne and cavalry units) assault on Lam Son in Laos (Operation Lam Son 719) in February 1971 saw the M41s massively engaged, with a deep penetration and disrupted as intended the NVA supply lines in the area. This saw a tank battle, with 17 M41s knocking out 22 NVA tanks (6 T-54s and 16 PT-76s) for the loss of 5 M41s. In 1973, the ARVN still deployed about 200 M41s
czcams.com/video/ImPk1NLD2ls/video.html
czcams.com/video/wynjtGq98bw/video.html
They got M48's late in the war
The M48 Patton has the distinction of playing a unique role in an event that was destined to radically alter the conduct of armored warfare.[7] When US forces commenced redeployment operations, many of the M48A3 Pattons were turned over to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) forces, in particular creating the ARVN 20th Tank Regiment; which supplemented their M41 Walker Bulldog units. During the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) Easter Offensive in 1972, tank clashes between NVA T-54/PT-76 and ARVN M48/M41 units became commonplace. But on 23 April 1972, tankers of the 20th Tank Regiment were attacked by an NVA infantry-tank team, which was equipped with the new 9M14M Malyutka (NATO designation: Sagger) wire guided anti-tank missile. During this battle, one M48A3 Patton tank and one M113 Armored Cavalry Assault Vehicle (ACAV) were destroyed, becoming the first losses to the Sagger missile; losses that would echo on an even larger scale a year later during the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East in 1973.[7]
The M48s performed admirably[8] in Vietnam in the infantry-support role. However, there were few actual tank versus tank battles. One was between the US 1-69th Armor and PT-76 light amphibious tanks of the NVA 202nd Armored Regiment near Ben Het in 1969.[7] The M48s provided adequate protection for its crew from small arms, mines, and rocket-propelled grenades. South Vietnamese M48s and M41s fought in the so-called Ho Chi Minh Offensive in 1975. In several incidents, the South Vietnamese Army successfully defeated NVA T-34 and T-55 tanks and even slowed the North's offensive. However since the United States Congress passed bans on the transfer of fuel and ammunition to South Vietnam, the American-made tanks were soon out of ammunition and fuel and were abandoned to the North Vietnamese Army in 1975 which put them in predictably short service of the Vietnamese People's Army after the war ended in May 1975.
Yeah, it's a US, not an ARVN vehicle, but I love the way it illustrates "GI ingenuity"
img.pr0gramm.com/2015/06/09/e1a7cdb34140b689.jpg
And in a little known deployment, there was Kampfgruppe Hammer
tanks-encyclopedia.com/coldwar/US/M41_Walker_Bulldog/M41A3_Bundeswehr.png
The NVA has kept their ARVN vehicles.
I have read a report on Line of Sight Anti Tank, LOSAT, Lockheed Martin, hyper ended 1999. Two insurmountable issues. It was wire guided, not fnf, taking too long and too much distance covered before capture. Also, ridiculous huge back blast danger zone on launch. System was mounted on Humvee, the idea being to provide light, cheap and deadly TD. Fast follow up shots were impossible, and, of course, a humvee doesn’t keep out a 125 mm she’ll.
I believe 2011 was the Manuever Conference that had Trophy. I was voluntold to attend as an ABOLC LT and distinctly remembered the Trophy display.
Regarding the use of tanks in Vietnam, I recall in Lynne M. Black's memoir 'Whiskey Tango Foxtrot', tanks only came out during voting season and were referred to as 'voting machines'. You can probably deduce what they were used for.
Monster - Churchill Mk.III
Jock - Marder II
Pretty Girl - Carro Armato P 26/40
Responsible Girl - Panzer IV Ausf. F
Skeptic Guy - Panzer III Ausf. L
The monster is slow and lumbering, but has a nasty tendency to surprise the victims by suddenly appearing atop terrain where no one would have figured you could get a tank. The Pretty Girl goes first. The Jock, looking for revenge almost gets it with his big, brawny gun, but can't take the punishment the monster dishes out and gets whacked. The Skeptic Guy goes second last, distracting the monster by pinging APCBC off its armour to keep its attention off the Reasonable Girl. And, finally, the Reasonable Girl survives by using the Skeptic Guy's distraction to get her hands on some HEAT rounds and finish the job.
IIRC napalm WAS dropped at least once in the Falklands. By a Pucara IIRC.
33:50 Chieftain, whatever, it's good enough for dragons.
I get that reference.
“The patron saint of track tensioning.” Great work, Tim Gawne! We must drink to that. And buy some books.
48:42 I had the same thought actually. We've had so many years of fighting small powers and insurgencies, a fight against Russians or Chinese could be a rude awakening.
The East German question was a good one....
" ....anything that the US army has been involved in recently's been daft..." :) bookmarking that quote :) ta
Well I did engage a Hind-D with one gun round,,,in SIMNET,, during basic course in late 87. The upside was the "SIM" pilot was my platoon leader from 2d cav :P . We, me and the three other crew issued/worked a standard fire command and opened in 5 seconds and closed in 12 for a 1 shot kill. Dave was not amused (and the Hind folded its blades like a Wylie Coyote cartoon, then fell). Like I could make that up
Fort Leonard Wood (Waynesville Mo) has examples of the flamethrower Shermans in their engineering museum
Processed sewage is diluted with water so it can be released back into rivers as opposed to raw sewage.
Would love to see a myths videos on German and USSR armor.
Thank you for all the information and entertainment you provide for us, I would like to say I really enjoy your content and I especially like your tangent storys it realy help me soak in the information you give by relaxing my brain to the extent where I can recall your info when I see a picture of a tank or see a tank in a movie and I can remember what you said or commented on that tank or event and I thank you for that.
And to answer your question about what format I prefer, scripted or unscripted, I definitely prefer unscripted, you tend to go on more tangents when are unscripted and I personally like like it.
As usual, sir, you were fascinating. Thanks for another thoughtful and entertaining Q&A.
He is starting to look like a tired, old Irish man. I am not saying that it is bad or poking fun as I am 34 and starting to notice the difference but, for good or bad, he is changing. Less relatable and cheary, more respectable, and knowledgeable. I like the "best dad ever" mug on the shelf :-)
A question I've seen a lot around the internet but never got an answer for: so from my understanding, the 76 mm M1 had the disadvantage of a smaller explosive charge compared to the 75 mm, because the shell body had to be stronger to resist the forces of being accelerated to the higher muzzle velocity of the gun. Why couldn't they design the HE shell with a reduced propellant charge to give it less muzzle velocity, and allow for a shell with more explosive filler?
They could, and sometimes it was done. The 17pr had such a reduced charge HE shell eventually created, for example. It does, however, come with aiming problems, especially at longer ranges.
12:25 "See thru armor" - a similar technology is on the F-35, with the addition that it can zoom in if needed and also puts a reticle with some data display over any target in the pilot's field of vision - so you might overlook a MiG-29 from a dozen miles if it is lower than your craft and blends into the ground, but if your gogles put a nice, background contrasting reticle around it...
Oddly, ground targets are harder handle by sensor and computer systems, but "you got the idea"...
Looking forward to the cybertank short story!
Battle of the Bulge, in Spain, in summer, in the desert. Classic.
Napalm was used in 1991 in the Gulf War by the US Marines to ignite oil filled trenches, and in 1994 in Croatia, but I didn't see anything about what it was actually dropped on.
I believe Overlord was “timed” for low tide, to expose beach/surf defense obstacles for destruction to facilitate the landing craft .
19:00 they were walker bulldog ones , fighting the type 59 tanks and apcs and the m41s won
Yes we should have had FOG-M as our NLOS system long ago. It was easily mounted into wheel (HUMMER), or track (M-113) systems and gave the battlefield command a live data link to view through the seeker head acting as an electronic scout while in flight. It has dual anti-armor and anti-helicopter capabilities.
One thing about the Poles in WWII, they did a remarkable job considering the disparity in weight and shininess of metal. I mean, they were doing almost 1 to 1 kill ratios against what were state-of-the-art aircraft with planes that were of 1920's vintage.
The former NVA guys I spoke to said they liked the simplicity and ruggedness of soviet equipment.
The BW guys liked the MIG 29, number of the helicopters.
The addition of full 360°x180° camera systems to a tank will also necessitate an additional crewman wedged in, probably beside the driver, to monitor the entire view and present any pertinent information to the gunner and commander in a usable format for coordination with the TP and battlefield systems. While such a system could be maintained as a rear echelon unit, reliance on it would require the capacity in at least 1/3 or more of the tanks in operation. It is simply too much workload for a TC to include with guiding his tank through battle. The up-side is such a crew member could be cubbieholed in a fixed location taking up very little space... like under the driver's cushion.
"Right, so you can fill your enemy full of .50 caliber holes, shred him to bits with explosives, or gut him with your bayonet, but setting him on fire is RIGHT OUT." - Advocates for More Humane Warfare
The Scorpion makes up for the Ground Pressure loss of having 4 treads, by making them like three times as wide as any modern tank. Spookums did a video the groundpressure going by official weight and the measurement of the treads is something absurd like 6.6psi. It's a wide bloody tank,
Based on your recommendation and the linked short story, I just bought Chronicles of the Old Guy. Thanks for the link, because I otherwise would not have gotten the spelling of his name right.
Having seen what can be done to mashed potatoes, "cooked" sewage is in the mess hall in some "lesser" provided units
In Allied testing of German WWII armor, the Tiger B's turret was found to have a cramped gunner's position. The vehicle they were looking at had the early turret; how were the ergonomics within the serienturm?
As a side note, what are your opinions on Tiger B overall? The general common opinion seems to be largely negative and riddled with criticisms on reliability, mobility, etc., yet much of the primary/secondary documentation I've read seems to be in stark contrast from an empirical standpoint.
For example, readiness rates, while imperfect, show Tiger B in a positive position. The final drives, while still arguably the weakest link of the vehicle, utilized helical gears as opposed to the straight-cut spurs seen on Tiger I and Panther. Tactical mobility was on-par with if not superior to many other tanks of the time (particularly off-road due to superb floatation). Perhaps these would be best left as a subject for its own "opinion on King Tiger" video in the future, but I figure it best to ask! Thanks for all you do.
A tank that looks good but is absolutely useless: M-22 Locust
ft-17....during ww2.
Found this Q&A informative and entertaining !