How did tank guns get so deadly? | Evolution of Firepower 

Hi Tank Nuts! Let us know what you think of this new series in the comments below.

This is an excellent, concise introduction to tank gunnery introduced by a clear spoken and knowledgeable presenter. A really first class production all round and a great credit to the tank museum and production team.

Great presentation. I was with the US Army in Desert Storm and saw how the 120mm depleted uranium sabot round from the M-1 Abrams would at 1K+ penetrate the front of a T-72 and blow its engine right out the back. It was like God smiting the enemy.

Absolutely brilliant as you folks say. All of the museums presenters do a good job but this persons knowledge, presence, and gravitas, made this perhaps one of the best chats yet. Really great job, and I look forward to more. The production value is as good as anything I have ever seen from the museum.👍

I always find it fascinating that with all this immense in technology, increase in killing power, revolutionary changes in tactics, a modern tank gun is still in essence just a massive ballista, hurling bolts at the enemy as in Roman times.

Very good video. One inaccuracy. First production gun stabilization was fielded on the Sherman 75MM, vertical stabilization only. Took a good trained gunner to use effectively but helped a Sherman crew get a round or two on target before a reply.

When I was a 7 year old lad in Germany we have had a bunch of British Soldiers on a big Nato exercise, possibly one of the Reforger ones or maybe even Able Archer. Anyhow I got to check out the guns, sit on and in one of the tanks and they were overall all a bunch of very nice lads and could clearly see the shine in my eyes looking and touching all that equipment so they went out of their way to show me around. Sadly I did not get to keep any trophies but I still remember it to this day.

As a very longstanding visitor and member of 'Friends', I pride myself on having viewed all the Tank Museum's RU-vid content. This is one of the very, very best. Thank-you and very well done to the writer, director, camera & sound operators, editor, excellent presenter and indeed the entire production team. I am greatly looking forward to the next one.

The evolution of tank design in just the few years of World War 2 is mindblowing. When you consider we started off with Matilda I and the American M2 light tank and ended up with Centurion tanks being tested in May 1945 and M26 Pershing.

Very impressed with Mr. Copson's German pronunciation, neat idea for a series as well, looking forward to armor and mobility.

A very well presented, well-rounded video. You are summarizing many decades of progress in 30 minutes, but you keep it flowing well and found a consistent level of detail to touch upon. I enjoyed it!

Another great presenter. Love these videos they have everything, technical, historical, and personal.

This format was very informative. I appreciated the ability to explain the progression over a century of development using tanks at the museum. I hope you are able to make a future video like this discussing drivetrain and track systems.

It’d be cool to see a similar video on the evolution of tank gunner and/or the commander’s optics.

Fun fact: My Dad's first older brother, Uncle Cliff ord was a tank commander in a Firefly in the war. He survived it, and lived to be 99 and almost reached reached 100. Note: Dad's oldest brother Walter died at 83, Dad's sister Margaret i.e. my Auntie Betty reached 100, and Dad reached 97.

The level of professionalism in your video editing, knowledge of the tanks (obviously), and the narrative you tell in these videos is just fenomenal!

As to the video itself: what an excellent presentation! Charismatic and clear speech, along with good visuals, where needed.

Chieftain had a thermal jacketed barrel and it introduced the MRS. Our tank was one of the first to get MRS, it dramatically improved our kill ratio as we could realign our sight during live firing.

A concise yet accurate summation of the technological improvements to the tank gun. It's Anglo-centric (unsurprisingly) but very well explained indeed. Thanks, TM!

Very well done. I’ve been a military history fan since the mid 70’s. I was impressed how well you compressed so many subjects, so well.

Chris really is a brilliant & knowledgeable presenter. Have him presenting more often please.

Excellent presentation. Production values as good as anything from Discovery, Smithsonian etc. I'll always cherish the original 'Tank Chats' with David Fletcher et al but these videos should ensure the continued popularity of the Museum and this channel. Well done 👏

This is some of the best content this channel has ever put out (a very high bar) - informative, but sufficiently concise, and incredibly insightful.

Great Video! I would be interested in a deeper dive into the evolution of tank ammunition. Maybe in a future epidode. Thanks

Greetings from Germany! I really dig your videos as they are presented with dry facts but still with the english smirk in your voice. Really pleasant to listen to and highly educational. And adding to that you guys bring me the "outside view" on things. If there is documentary on tanks here, it mainly talks about the Leopard line or the Tiger, or the american tanks like Sherman and Abrams, but very few show the british machinery, even though the Challenger 2 is widely regarded as one of the most capable tanks in service.

Love this series guys! Incredible content. It is just an overview but if you turned this into a mini-series, i'd watch every episode.

Awesome video! Thank you so much for taking the time to guarantee such quality.

Thank you for a very informative, insightful & explanatory basics into tank ammunition & evolution, it was really great & I enjoyed it immensely as always.

Really excellent presentation. Well thought out and easy to follow. It was a great blend of live presentations on or in (loved the interior shots!) the actual tanks when possible, animations and actual footage. And THANK YOU for not just showing the same stock footage over and over like a lot of other documentaries. On each tank mentioned I wanted more and more information, which means it's a great documentary. I appreciate the explanations of some of the smaller things like the fume extractor. I had always wondered what that bump was on the barrel. More please! 🙂

Well done and clearly presented. The conflicting demands in tank design are made clear, with an obvious emphasis on fire power. I look forward to more such videos.

incredible video and presentation. The presenter had a way of words that kept you engaged and wanting to know more of what they could potentially say next.

Great video, the quality of internal refurbishment and equipment in Tiger 131 is astounding and good to see.

Thanks very much for this really interesting video. I used to work at Chilwell Depot, so saw the chieftain, scorpion/scimitar and 432 first hand. Have yet to visit Bovington, but it's on my bucket list!

Absolutely terrific content! Impeccable content like this easily replaces the complete lack of similar content that we used to find on terrestrial television networks such as Discovery and History channel. My sincerest gratitude, and please keep these coming!

Very well presented, Informative video. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks Tank team. Keep up the great work

Thought this was very well made, with solid presentation, which can be trickier than some people think. Reminds me a quite a bit of the old documentaries that got me interested in this in the first place, back before Reality TV took over. Very well done!

Superb, against an already high bar. Thanks.

As someone who was lucky enough to serve as an armored crewman on both the M60A3 and the M1A1, I had a chance to compare apples to oranges. I and all my buddies agree that the rifled 105mm on the 60 was much more accurate than the smooth bore 120mm on the Abrams. You'd think the obvious reason would be the spin imparted on the round, which makes sense. We think it's because that old hog of a tank took and held a good boresight. The gunner on an M-1 get to choose between the hull and the turret when calling his shot. The 60 gunner picks what road wheel he wants to hit.

This video does an amazing job of explaining things in a clear way while explaining specialist terminology

You've got it all Chris - armour, mobility and firepower!

Love the video! As a none brit I would have loved a little more talk on the new smoothbore guns like the rheinmetal 120

Great video. Looking forward to more in this series.

Not only do you not need rifling for modern HEAT rounds, the spin actually has a degrading effect on their function.

Wow you pretty much explained every question I had from my observations of modern tank designs, very informative thank you

This was an awesome video, really enjoyed it! Would love to see something similar on armour 😁

That was first class, well done to you all. I particularly enjoy seeing whatever equipment using the ammunition

Excellent, Chris and Tank Museum production team! As usual - a no-frills, hard information presentation. Thank you, for your work.

Great video from end to end. Information, presentation, narration and illustration! I left this video much better informed than from any other tank video I've ever seen. 10/10.

Very comprehensive information. This video will be a hit with the tank community.

Excellent. Looking forward to more vids on tank technology.

An excellent new series , thank you to all involved

This again a very nice series, please continue with this. I absolutely love it! Thank you all for all this knowledge, tidbits etc... Many thanks from Belgium 🇧🇪

A really interesting and highly informative video. I learnt a lot of things I thought I knew but actually didn't. One day I'll have to scrape my rear off my swivel chair, cross the Channel and visit Bovington. For the time being I'll have to do with your brilliant vids! Thank you so much for sharing.

Excellent. Many thanks from a former troop leader in 43 Tank Battalion of the Dutch Army in 1967/1968. I would have liked to hear a bit more about the Centurion tank we and numerous other countries used. The ranging HE round to establish the distance of a target over 1,000 yards seems outdated at the time as range finders had long been in use.

That was a lot of good information. Thank You for taking the time to make this video.

Great video, and very well presented / narrated Chris. We miss you up the road!

nice video i love the tank museum

great feature I know you touched on it but I would love to see a similar feature on the evolution and a little of the science of sighting systems, thanks for the guns.

This is excellent. Thank you. I appreciate the detail packed into this short video. Well done.

Verrrry good presentation. And the audio quality is exquisit. Thank you for making content of this quality!

Brilliant video and the hole left by the legend David Fletcher is being filled in well!

Superb video. Can we have matching ones on self protection / armour and future of the tank please.

Thank you for this vid. Excellent coverage of the topic.

Fascinating insight and well presented. Thanks for clearing up a couple of questions I had about guns too!

That was an excellent overview on the evolution of the tank gun. Will you be doing similar episodes on the other two sides of the triangle? One on the evolution of anti-tank ammunition would be quite welcome as well. The changes to armor arrangement and materials forcing rounds from relatively low velocity solid shot to APFSDS and tandem warhead ATGMs is a fascinating subject.

Weird to ignore the FT17, but maybe it'll turn up in the Armour or Mobility videos.

What an amazing video! Clean, concise and got to the point. Well done!

Fantastic work. Well done

I like the "Bigger Picture" overview. Seems like this would work for other topics like Combined Arms tactics or describing updates and improvements in various Marks across different eras. Also consider a bit of storytelling describing tank battles from the perspective of the crews and individuals involved. The war in Ukraine has likely sparked a renewed interest in not only tanks but other modern armoured fighting and support vehicles....a good way to bring enthusiasts into the world of current weapons and systems.

It would have been rather fitting to include a moment or two on the how, when and why of the migration from hull-mounted guns to the currently ubiquitous turret mounted armaments and the mix of main-gun and auxiliary weaponry like coaxially mounted and Turret-top machineguns etc.

Absolutely superb commentary. Really informative and interesting. Concise is exactly what it is.

Excellent video. Thanks for posting.

It might be useful to graph with a line graph the increasing size of typical tank main guns in medium tanks and MBTs starting in 1940 to illustrate how they grew from 40mm at the start of WWII to 76mm plus at war's end and then to 90mm, 105mm, and today 120 mm. This would be a very useful chart for the conclusion of the presentation.

Would it be possible to do a comparison of guns with their ammunition its balistics/effectiveness maybe ww1, ww2, cold war. Sort of a top tumps for the period would be intresting to see how regardless what they were mounted in how the different guns compared

Great presenter. Easy to follow and understand. A good blend of technical jargon mixed with layman terms. Learned a lot and enjoyed it.

Loved that! Brilliant work as always...

I don't always Triforce, but when I do, I prefer depleted uranium armor piercing fin stabilized discarding sabot, tracer.

Something missing from this otherwise extraordinary video is L7 gun. I think it would deserve its own episode. It seems its derivatives are still in service, and with deployment of Leopards (1) in Ukraine the gun will be revived.

Absolutely facinating. Many thanks.

Very interesting video, very well presented. Thanks!!

Mr Picky here.. firstly Chris refers to a "round" and a "charge" when describing 120 TK ammunition. Not quite right.. the term "round" applies to all the ammunition components needed for a shot. He should have said "projectile" not "round". A round for an L30 consists of a projectile, charge and tube! Secondly, the description of the fume extractor is again not quite correct. There is no vacuum involved during firing. The fume extractor fills up with high pressure propellent gas as the projectile passes it and before it exits the muzzle. When the projectile exits the muzzle, the pressure in the barrel drops as it vents to atmosphere. The high pressure gas in the fume extractor now vents out through a series of forward facing holes in the barrel creating a gas flow blowing the remaining fumes in the barrel out of the muzzle. As the barrel returns to battery after recoiling, the breech block is opened automatically allowing clean air from the turret to flow up and out of the barrel. If the tank is closed down and the CBRN pack is operating, the turret will be at a positive air pressure assisting the barrel fume clearance process. The use of a combustible charge bag with the L30 gun also reduced the fume load as there was no smoking cart case ejected into the turret. This was a significant source of fume with the L7 gun and needed to be removed from the turret.

The 'male' and 'female' tank distinction always makes me chuckle. "You see when a Mommy Tank and a Daddy Tank love each other very much.." "And that's where tankettes come from!"

brilliant - excellent presentation. Thank you

Brilliant! Honestly a really great watch

I play War Thunder im just a kid but i love this so much and ive seen through the history of tanks and there firepower everyone hates British solid shot but we were just right! We used solid shot right up to everyone using APFSDS and that shrapnel is crazy in my WW2 British tank german tanks dont stand a chance

Fantastic. I love how your videos have become more in depth over the years. I can’t wait to get down to Bovington the next time we go to England.

That's a great vid thanks for taking the time to produce it

Thanks for making this video! :D

Really enjoyed this video, thanks.

Loving this new series. Well done!

Excellent work, lads! I'd definitely love to see more in-depth episodes (and perhaps a series, if possible), each focused on specific nations: their design choices, the rationale behind them and their associated components (like the turret characteristics, sensors, ammunition storage and handling, etc.). It would be awesome to see dedicated episodes about the evolution of tank firepower in the USA, the UK, the USSR, France, Germany, Italy, etc. As an example, an episode about German tank guns could start exploring the ones on the A7V from WWI, then the ones mounted on the Panzers II, III, IV, V (Panther), VI (Tiger) and VII (Königstiger) from WWII and finalize with the Leopard and Leopard II's main armament, from the Cold War to the present day. This is just a humble personal fantasy though 🙃; you guys are already doing a stellar job as it is! Cheers from Chile!

Wonderful mini doc .. just superb.

Fascinating. Thank you for all your hard work.

That was fascinating and awing. Thank you so much.

Hi I honestly don't understand why the British 105 mm Gun was left out , in my humble opinion a major step in tank guns

Thank you for a very informative, insightful & explanatory basics into tank ammunition & evolution, it was really great & I enjoyed it immensely as always.👍

The quality of this series is exceptional, I’m looking forward to more!

Utterly first class presentation, it sets the benchmark for whatever ( and whoever ) follows. Well done !

Brilliant video this was. Cheers

Thank you for producing such a wonderful and informative doco on tanks. Kudos and much appreciation for your efforts!