We're back! Another two-parter, this one on the iconic cold war vehicle. NA forum thread forum.worldoftanks.com/index.p... Asia forum.worldoftanks.asia/index.... Console (XBox/PS4) forum-console.worldoftanks.com...
One of my favorite things about these videos (Besides getting to "see" the tanks) is the Historical, ideological and development processes related to the tank in question. Thanks for providing those! Plus the obvious "Tanker/Professional Opinion" from TheChieftan.
The same here. Tanks there are all good but "pay to win" politics and current push into higher and higher and highest of tiers is so violently loaded from every inch of the screen when in game. I tend to leave all above tier VI (Tiger excluded) but they apparently nerfed all of it which in case of current Match Making schema is atrocious! I don't think Europe and the US are the targets of this game since you barely scratch T-34-85 with a regular 88mm Tiger gun. When opposite, Tiger is NOTHING for T-34 85mm to first (or 2nd) shot-kill it in seconds aiming never penetrated during the whole WW2 vertical frontal plate of Tiger shit-gun. Just use a T-34-85M or T-34-100 and you can drive a battle ready, up-armored Leopard 2A7 - it is still NOTHING for a single "the shitiest tank of the WW2 era". And those fantasies on Pz I C shooting its 20mm guns into tanks. While in real Pz I with such a gun never killed any tank even the lightest tank. It was never actually used against any tank. Never EVER!!! The biggest game it could kill was a crudely made armored car. The kind made of riveted not hardened steel plates one put on a regular truck chassis.
I just want to say that the videos are great, and your timing couldn't be any better, as I am currently working on a T-55. Your videos are a fantastic source of info for us modelers. Can't wait for Part 2!!!
IMO an interesting addition to these videos would be an in-depth talk on how the suspension, transmission and all that other stuff works. I love the videos but I do sometimes find myself sitting there thinking, 'how does ... work?'
Kind of funny to note that small but significant difference between eastern and western tank design with the commander's hatch. It shows you how much of an emphasis on crew efficiency and situational awareness western countries had in their tank doctrines. I guess maybe we thought that if we couldn't outnumber, out armor or outgun the Russian tanks, at least we could out-fight them. Interesting distinction between military cultures.
+Keinlicht This hatch thing was proposed by Otto Carius the great tiger ace. He said that when the t34s opened their hatches to look out the germans could spot the easily because of the abnormality that is the hatch. So when the leopard was being developed he suggested a sliding type hatch to reduce this abnormality
+Soham Sarfare well but the huge downside of a sliding hatch(in my case on the leo2a4) is it takes quite awhile to close/open the hatch compared to the other hatch system
Soham Sarfare Huh, if that's true that would make some sense. The open hatch is quite an obvious feature, and having the ability to increase situational awareness with an open hatch without alerting the enemy, I imagine, would be valued pretty highly by tank commanders. I wonder if any of the features of soviet tanks were introduced by former tank commanders, or if they were much more of a 'designed by committee' thing. I would imagine the latter.
Keinlicht I heard it in a "Greatest Tank Battles" video- its a documentary/narrative series on the greatest tank battles. So in one of them Otto Carius was featured and he mentioned ( in his memoirs) that when the t34s popped their hatches it made them easy to spot
+SubmarinerSix Once you stick your head outside, it doesn't matter - you expose it to direct fire. Soviet tank - your head is exposed to all threats and body from everywhere except front. If there is artillery fire - you are at big risk. Western tank - depends on how much you rise from turret, but you can have (at least for some tank) hatch cover just in raised position, so it protects your head from above. So you are protected from splinters from above.
about the hatch, this tank was designed to fight in Nuclear - Bio - Chemical contaminated battle field. You don't want to leave you hatch or any thing open in that situation.
Oh i am gonna love seeing the cheiftaain get inside the 55. That tank was made for people much smaller than him. Would love to see him trying to fit in that tiny little tank
The wide snorkel was just for training, because the crews didn't like that there was no escape route if the engine died mid crossing. The combat version was smaller simply because they could carry them with the tank, and greater risks were acceptable. The large model just mounts to the hatch, and includes a ladder inside and out. Also can the ramp and pin system be described as "archaic"? Had they been using it for a long time when T-34 adopted it? Primitive, yes, but that doesn't make it necessarily archaic.
Somewhere I had gotten the impression that the TC had a rotating cupola, but that the hatch lid forward was simply the preferred position. Apparently I am mistaken. Thanks, Nick for another great video!! They keep getting better.
An interesting statement. Would you be prepared to justify the claim? Just curious, since I used to wear the Oglaidh NA hEireann FF as my cap badge and I don't believe I've ever expressed any particular opinion on the Irish independence process.
Plenty of West Britons served in the free state army. I don't see why you didn't just move on from there to the British army, so you could shoot at your own countrymen.
Hey! I've been on a 'Nicolas Moran talks about tanks'-kick lately and something caught my... ear, I guess: How sure are you this is actually a T-55A? The design for the T-55A was specifically the design that did away with the bow machine gun, so it'd be strange for a T-55A to have a hole for it. At a guess, it's a CSLA T-55M/T-55AM, which was a T-55 (no letter) refurbished to T-55A standard. That, or a T-54M/T-54AM, a T-54A refurbished to T-55A standard. I'm not that good at telling the 54s and 55s apart.
Snorkel - as far as I remember, wide training snorkel was also escape tunnel and was mounted onto the escape hatch. Whether it is true for both main Eastern MBT's (T-55 and T-72) I do not know for sure. Or better to say - I am quite sure that it was used this way in case of the T-72 but I am unsure about T-55. Does anybody know?
Is track slap really much of an issue? If the pins are strong enough, wouldn't the track hitting the tank just make a really loud noise? Answers/explanations appreciated.
+engared Quick bout of Wiki: "Jacques Littlefield collected many vintage military vehicles including a Panther tank, several M4 Sherman tanks and a SS-1 Scud launcher. He had over 220 military vehicles to his name." "On July 11 and 12th 2014, 160 vehicles of the Littlefield Collection were auctioned off to fund creation of a new museum to display the collection at the Collings Foundation headquarters in Stow, Massachusetts." So it very well could be one of the 60+ that weren't sold. Extra confusion: Another article on the Wiki cites the number auctioned as 120.
It is to my knowledge that on the T-54/55, there is a larger gap between the first and second road wheel than the rest. My question is, why is it there?
+TheRetu81 Neuttah is correct. It was a weight distribution thing, and not about the escape hatch at all. The T-62, T-64, T-72 and T-80 all have similarly sized escape hatches, but they did not need to have a roadwheel gap.
"In reality the chances are if your hatch gets submerged you gonna get wet". I thought "NBC protection" means that vehicle is pressurized. Therefore submerging should not a problem As is shown later in the video where the "deep water fording" is demonstrated.
Think about it - if the pressure inside the tank is high enough to prevent water at a few meters' depth from getting in, the crew would be experiencing the pressure of more than a few meters of water...
To TheChieftainWot, if you ever stuble to Finland there is in Parola a Armour Museum where you can find totally sliced up T-55 (or is it T54 or T56, dunno) which was used to train maintnance personnell. I suppose... (www.panssarimuseo.fi/kehys-e.html) Bit easier way to demonstrate tank ;-) I can send u pictures of it if u want.
IMO the Panther had the best open-protected hatch. Easily opened from there and since it was so laborious to open and close fully, it was almost always left in the open-protected position.
What rolls down stairs alone or in pairs, and over your neighbor's dog? What's great for a snack, And fits on your back? It's log, log, log It's log, it's log, It's big, it's heavy, it's wood. It's log, it's log, it's better than bad, it's good." Everyone wants a log You're gonna love it, log Come on and get your log Everyone needs a log log log log LOG FROM BLAMMO
Having ridden in a T-55, a PT-76, and a BTR-60, I'll say that the whole forward-opening hatch business is a design flaw. Not only can you not just open the hatch and sit with only your head exposed, the hatches impose a major blind spot unless you stand high enough to see over it, or sit on the roof of the vehicle. Yes, they would provide a little bit of cover from small arms fire to the front, but at the expense of exposing pretty much your entire torso to flanking fire, or shots over the rear of the turret. The western system of rear or horizontally opening hatches provide more cover, not less. There is no advantage to that soviet design in the slightest.
How do rear-opening hatches protect you from flanking fire? And did you know that you can rotate the cupola around to face whatever direction you wanted?
+deodorantdeath By allowing you to not expose your body. To look around the hatch on most Russian armored vehicles, you have to have your torso either half or fully exposed to any angle except the direct front. In other nations designs, you are just exposing your head, which is a much smaller target. On the PT-76 and BTR, the hatches do not rotate. In fact, the hatch of the PT-76 covers the width of the entire turret and almost requires two men just to open because it's very heavy. It was back in the mid-1970s, so I don't recall it clearly, but I don't remember there being any rotating hatches on the T-55, and I can't find any photos that show it facing any direction but forward. Some of their current tanks have a rotating commander's hatch, but it's still not a feature on armored infantry carriers.
+Larry Fontenot You can open the hatch, spin the hatch to the side, and peek over the edge of the cupola by squatting on your seat. Nothing prevents you from doing that.
***** I do see where you're coming from because diesel combusts upon compression hence why diesel engines have lots of compression 22:1 or above actually.
Jay Harr it has to be atomized...pour diesel on a table slap it with an open hand with a match I can almost guarantee ignition...same happens when a penetrator hits an exposed fuel cell the heat from the round ignites the mist or a spark from a ricochet...it's not a totally bad idea but it's highly unlikely that ONLY a fuel cell is hit...
Which museum is this tank in? I'm wondering about the fake gun thing. Also I would think if you were going to have a huge armoured plate blocking the hatch while open you might prefer having it behind the commander/gunners head to offer protection from the rear which is more likely to be overlooked.
+Marc83Aus Think about it this way, if you're going to put protection, would you rather have it facing the direction where you are more likely to be shot at from, or the direction you are less likely to be shot at from? You protect the tank and the crew against likely threats, not against something that happens rarely. Besides, if they get behind you, things have gone horribly wrong anyway and getting shot at by small-arms should be the least of your worries.
When the tank gets bogged down in mud they place that log in front of the tracks so these can get some grip and clear out of the mud. Very useful in Russia where they have he most, the deepest and the worst mud in the world.
They actually did, the 85 could pierce 142mm with an AP shell at 100m; while the 76 only did 132mm at that same distance vs Face hardened armor( 85mm didn't make any distinction). The 76 did punch through 154mm @ 100m vs rolled armor.
***** There are more efficient designs imaginable certainly, but it's far from useless. You can use it to spray in the enemies general direction to keep their heads down, or use it to cover a retreat when you're reversing the tank. A weapon doesn't always have to actually hit the target to fulfill it's intended function.
Peter Timowreef No modern tank fields a hull machine gun as it creates a weakpoint in the armor. The tank is already supported by infantry, IFVs, artillery and other forms of fire support. The driver is busy enough as it is, trying to coordinate with the TC and you want him to manage a MG. Not to mention additional space and production to equip an MG in already such a confined space.
+TheChieftainWoT I don't know why...But i find you extremly good that watching Inside the chieftain's hatch is like a drug to me,but my great question is.... How tall are you even? you make the Maus look like a lego toy mobile...
