Inside the Chieftain's Hatch: T-34-85, Episode 2 

23:55 - About the "protester" who stole a decommissioned T-34 in 2006, on the memorial day of the 1956 Hungarian revolution: that was actually a pretty old guy who used to serve the Hungarian (or rather: Soviet) army back in the day as a tank crewmember. His goal wasn't to attack the police, but to cause a bit more chaos, and, according to the guy himeself: "to have a little fun".

In soviet russia, gear shifts you.

Tanks are great of course, but did we really need to have the annoying and distracting music?

What made you think that twenty five minutes of intro music played in competition to the narration was a 'stonking' idea?

It was hard to change gears because you did not have the amazingly easy to use Stalinium hammer that is standard issue for the Motherland's glorious tankers.

music. driving. me. nuts.

I wonder who thought that the music was a good idea

My father's tank from 1941 to 1945. Thank you very much.

You are an honest, intelligent, informative, fellow with a great sense oh dry humor. I'd buy a used tank from you any-day.

I was a M551 driver for three years in the 70's. I never felt claustrophobic. My chest was tight just watching the view for the driver and especially the machine gunner. Yikes! My floor hatch was HUGE compared to that thing.

Outstanding, Nicholas.

somone has to say it .. in Soviet Russia, Clutch depresses YOU.

Really good video. But for gosh sake turn off the the repetitive music.

These are great presentations and on behalf of all the tank loving community (veterans, hobbyists, military history buffs, engineers, crazy guys like me, etc) I thank "World of Tanks" for such high quality videos. I appreciate your unbiased and factual descriptions of each feature (good or bad) of these combat vehicles regardless of their country of origin. I would just make a "little" suggestion, if I may. These videos as watched by many supporters whose native language may not be English, in which case, the music may interfere with their understanding of the more technical terms used in these lectures. I would suggests to just turn the music down a bit, thank you. Keep on the phenomenal work! Ciao, L

I never thought gear shifting was so complicated

The life of a WW2 tanker must have been a pretty miserable buisness.

There are actually a few remote places in the world where it is still being used. They are being used in the Yemen conflict. They run a cord from the manual firing trigger out the pistol hole and pull from the outside of the tank as the brass has been reused so many times they have ruptured shell casings occasionally when they're fired and you don't want to be in the turret when that happens.

A great Video ! Very good ! Thank you. But one thing .... the music is horrible !

I wish the background music was shot at by the 34's main gun . This constant racket of b g music makes it impossible for certain hearing impaired persons to understand the commentator. Tried to watch it but sadly, as I love this stuff, I had to quit trying to understand the commentator.

I'm 63 and loved this complete video. Thank you very much to everyone.

Great but ... I had to watch it in stages. The endless guitar riff was just too distracting and annoying! Other than that this is excellent.

Annoying background noise. Apart from that a great show.

"Large metal components interfacing with his head"

The music in the back round constantly playing, kills this video. Good walk thru, i seen plenty i didn't know about. Now i want to tinker more with my 1/6 scale T34

Mr Nicholas Moran is getting better and better with each episode. It was informating and entertaining! :) Thx for the vid.

The best ww2 weapons documentaries i've ever seen. It was very thorough, however, the background music wasn't welcome

I don't know how many times i have watched this video. I love it. And Nicholas Moran is a great presenter. Love it! Goodbye all the way from Romania.

Of course you're not gonna be comfortable, you're at least a foot taller than the maximum allowed height for a soviet tanker!

Excellent!! This is the true 'Inside the Chieftain's Hatch' that we used to be seeing before those 'snapshots' episodes!.. Nice work, informative and amusing, keep up the good work Chieftain.. cheers

Not just you, Nicholas. I have heard that T-34 drivers made a habit of keeping a hammer handy to assist in gear changes.

"And it allows the round to fall to the floor, where the loader can then trip over it." GG Ivan xD

thanks for the video, it was really, really good of them to let you start and move their vehicle. Thank you to both you and the museum for this

Can't wait until they implement gear-shifts in WoT.

I would like to mention that this tank (the T34/85 is not alone in this, of course) has a significant shot trap under the mantlet-even worse than the earlier (M40 to M42) versions. Why the turret is sited so far forward is perhaps an engineer's best solution to some other proportion difficulty, but it makes the tank far more vulnerable to incoming fire, and front protection is supposed to be a tank's main defense. It seems to me upon reflection that the whole purpose of increasing armor on the turret front is negated by the creation of a serious shot trap caused by the overhang compounded by the shape of the mantlet. This is why the Panther G had its mantlet modified; to remove that very vulnerability. Should not a tank's front form a more or less perfect slope with no marked undercut? I would think that would be a major design paradigm, given the distribution of armor (specifically, its preponderance on the frontal vector of almost every tank ever made). But, here, any shot low on the turret front would be directed into the turret ring; would it not?

Love it !! The Chieftain looked quite worried as he was selecting the gears and almost guessing whether he was in neutral or not !!

ładnie opowiedziane , ładnie pokazanie ... dziękujemy

I like the longer video length. Would love to see an hour of "Moran Out Takes and Bloopers".

Love the vid, you could drop the nerve wracking music!

Great explanation of operations! Kudos

Great Video, thank you for sharing.

very nice and funny episode : D Nicholas looked nervous while driving t34-85, but its understandable. more or less this machine is relic.

I think these would be a lot better if the music wasn't constantly repeating over and over again in the background.

Great detail, great knowledge, I just subscribed due to how awesome your video is, thank you!

Great video. Thanks. Very informative.

Couldn't watch anymore because of the music.... very good and informative

Btw. the gear lever is hard to pull beacuse they havent had time to sand it so it has rough edges, like 90 degree so that why its hard to move it

Very informative. Thanks so much!

very interesting learned some details about the vehicle thanks Nicholas Moran!

this series is so interesting, but jesus man, the background music is almost literally driving me mad... PLEASE REUPLOAD WITHOUT MUSIC

Great stuff, but my god could you cut the music?

the "ramp" for lining up the track pins back, and that turret traversing device, are the most briliant design features i see in this tank

Fantastic video. Thanks.

"We had a small incident with the memory card and the turret monster..." Goodness I have to hear this one.

The crews probably preferred revolvers so that they didn't have to deal with spent shell casings flying throughout the turret interior.

Thank you for the comments on crew training.

Excellent presentation and very interesting and informative.

T-34-85 does have commander's overrride. There was a second panoramic gunner's sight for indirect fire.

Conversation goes like this : Western tanker : " this isn't comfortable. " Soviet commander : " get in the tank."

Great video! Really informative!!!

Great job, thank you so match. Be happy❤

According to the opinion of the American tank experts at Aberdeen Proving Ground who investigated a T-34/85 without treads built in late 1945 and captured in Korea during the war there in the early '50s, the transmission was without synchronization and the method used to deal with that was termed crash shifting. With less than 500 miles on the odometer the gearbox oil in this particular tank had accumulated about half-a-cup of metal torn from the gear teeth in it. They also reported that the turret, unlike almost all other tanks of the era, had no bottom to the basket, which meant that a crewmember out of his seat during turret rotation would have to step among extra ammo, spent brass, or whatever else might be in the bottom of the tank as the turret turned or else be dragged along and likely injured as the turret rotated. I've often wondered how the Soviets got the diesel engines in those things started during the Russian winter while the Germans were failing to get their gasoline-powered tanks cranked. I owned a diesel-powered 1978 Mercedes 300D for many years, which would only crank in cold weather after the glow plugs warmed the cylinders for 15-30 seconds or so, so I guess that's how they did it, but I still wonder. Maybe they also used block heaters, which my old Mercedes could have been retrofitted with. Using diesel fuel was smart, not only because it's less dangerous than gasoline, but it has 6% more energy per gallon.

Awesome video. Just a tip, to put it into first or reverse, pull that little spoon thingy of the gear leaver (don't know the English word) to do so. Otherwise, awesome.

Great Work...Truly enjoy your vids.....

That music is melting my brain!

I now officially suffer of claustrophobia. To go in battle in that deathtrap must have been an unspeakable anguish.

The music! OMG! the most irritating, psyko rage it brings!

Great video, I do feel claustrophobic watching you inside the tank.

I found this video both amusing and informative.

Awesome. Loved it. Terrible-for-crews tanks are my favorite :)

Not sure if the music loop or the gear stick were worse, but this was extremely entertaining, thank you WG.

excellent video, thanks.

Great video thank you 😊

Brilliant video! Am I right in thinking that the T-34 was ahead of most other tank designs in WWII in as much as it used a diesel engine and thereby had a much reduced risk of caching fire?

Great video. I am in awe of these Soviet tankers. I have heard that there was a height restriction - and they could be no more than 5'4' tall. After seeing this video I can believe it. But please, why, why, why the droning bloody awful background music! for 25 minutes!! nearly drove me mad. Remove it please.

Love the anegdote about starting up the monument.

Great video, great sense of humor

why the music? are you in a disco

Great channel with amazing vids. Could you possibly reupload without the music? I'm hard of hearing and the music makes the dialogue a bit muddled to me.

Thank you. Very interesting.

Total respect for the tankers!

Chieftain: this tank seems to have been designed for the needs of the state with little regard for the crew. Uncle Joe: Excellent feedback, comrade. You will have much time to further develop this line of thought in Siberia.

It strikes me that while we all know out ancestors were shorter (and young 17 year olds are always more nimble to get in and out of a tank like that), the confines of some Soviet tanks may have been part of the reason - beyond that of just using everyone - of female tankers. They'd be even shorter, in general, than the male tankers. I've often read about Soviet tankers using big hammers to get them in and out of gear, and for gear shifts, and this sort of shows why. The tanks were great, but blunt, tools for the job. Nick, this may not be your job, but with your Russian contacts it may be a great business advertisement to gather up good parts about the history of some of their female tankers and to present it as a WoT video. All of us in the west have read parts of the stories, but I'm positive there are better and more stories the Russians would have access to. it would be a great history lesson, and may appeal to female gamers' interest in the game. Presented by you, or a female staff member of War Gaming, it could be a very interesting video.

Nice job 👍. Good to see one running

I love tanks and some of your videos I’m interested in and I learn a lot form you videos

16:57 That moment when you see a Tiger 1 shooting at you.

Amen to the music comments. Please, in future, lose it. It is intensely irritating, especially in the longer presentations. That said, as a former Cold War tanker...this stuff is great!

With all the accounts I've heard of tankers trying to escape burning vehicles, seeing Nick fail to escape from that hatch was upsetting. These are weapons of war. Still, this was a very insightful pair of videos. Brilliant, I think.

Such a beautiful tank, a true classic

dear santa...

Love these tank vids. Great work. The music track does detract some what. Overly repetitive and drowned out the sound of the engine. I want to hear the tanks diesel song.

Great stuff mate

Nice lengthy episode. First i was frightened by the 25 minutes. But i was full of well informative stuff. Thank you very much!

these are very enjoyable, thank you. music is however distracting and unnecessary.

The Russians love pneumatic starters. They do that with planes too. Why? WINTER! Batteries don't like cold.

Going back to older episodes of those iconic tanks is pretty interesting to see

My favourite term “service the target”. Love it

Nicolas thanks for the report, but some points for consideration: - you are 2m tall, and its a problem. But, soviet crewman were selected under 1.70m or even 1,60. With over 3mln man under arms and just about 50.000 tanks - no probelm to find some right people. same in air force for the MiG-15. The infantry, in the opposite, need tall man. They can carry more- - smaller tank makes the armor thikness better, and the angles take even more additional space. - The full simplicity of design made the great manufacturing numbers, and the win in the end. The gear shift system of tiger one or the panther had more parts as the whole T-34, and bouth could knock each other out from 500m in front.

The verbal commentary is good info but the music background makes it hard to watch. Do this series again but lose the music.

17:00 OMG OMG OMG. The shear thrill it must be... to be sitting in a FREAKING TANK as it comes to life and starts creeping forward. There's something that hits at the pure essence of what it means to be a man. I'll never forget the thrill I experienced when I learned how to use the clutch in my first car which had a 5-speed transmission.

Excellent. This link shows glimpses of a well-maintained interior of a functional T-34... used dysfunctionally