Powering Victory: How tank engines went from 105 to 1200bhp 

We hope you enjoyed Chris' latest episode of Evolution. We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments down below! 😊

Transmissions and suspension are just as critical to mobility. Please cover that

I'd love a video on "evolutionary dead ends" in tank design. Ideas that may have worked for a generation or two but didn't have staying power. The first that comes to mind are the oscillating turrets of the AMX designs, or maybe even earlier ideas about multiple turrets. And how many designs have you seen where there is a major secondary armament like a coaxial 20 or 30mm cannon that never makes it to production. I think this would be a fantastic video, or series of videos.

My paternal grandfather was all too closely familiar with the engine in his MkIV female. The underpowered and extremely smoky Daimler sleeve-valve engine used in the MkI to IV ~ was made worse by the military’s system of fuel allocation. The highest octane fuel went to aircraft, middle rated fuel to staff cars and transport whilst the grotty old 45 octane was deemed suitable to tractors and the like ~ including tanks. The MkIV did have a more reliable fuel delivery system in the form of the ‘Autovac’ and the use of a ‘proper’ exhaust system certainly improved matters for the crew, whereas the earliest models lacked any real engine exhaust system at all, the gases just venting through slots in the roof above the engine. The conditions must have been appalling! My grandfather’s tank was knocked out by a German field gun ~possibly a 7.5cm or 7.7cm ~ which detonated in the engine block, utterly destroying the tank and showering my grandfather in burning engine oil. Even though he passed away in the mid 1960s when I was only 6 or 7, I can still remember the burn scars on him. I’ve always regretted that I wasn’t quite old enough to actually talk to him about his experiences. Those first tank crews were real trail-blazers ~ real tough buggers too!

Really enjoying Chris as a host and his content.

Tank engine design seems to be rather difficult; once an engine is finally debugged, there is a tendency to stick with it for as long as absolutely possible. You touched on it with the Soviet V-2 diesel, but the Ford GAA and RR Meteor went on to power tanks well into the Cold War. The Continental AVDS-1790 is a good Cold War example.

"Oh, bugger, the Boiling Vessel is on fire!" Thanks again for these succinct and informative overviews of important tank concepts.

Chris is such an awesome presenter and orator, he explains subjects brilliantly and im thoroughly enjoying his latest videos, keep them coming as they are outstanding! 😊

Noo, It’s 10PM and I have stuff to do tomorrow. Looks like I’ll have to watch in the morning...

Another excellent presentation from the Tank Museum. Well done. I learn more with each new class, thank you professor. The Chieftain was one of my favorite British tanks to bad the engine was so unreliable. Britain tried to meet the NATO requirements for a multi fuel engine then Germany and the US just disregard that and went ahead with diesel powered tanks. Imagine how good the Chieftain would have been with good reliable diesel.

While working on a generator I have had to climb inside a steel box with an 8.1L diesel engine on load a few times. Even with hearing protection and sound insulation on the inside of the casing, it was insanely loud and I did wonder how that would have compared to a WW1 tank. My conclusion is it would be chaotic, hot and deafening, but I`m sure it would have been better inside than outside, barely.

On the L60. The multi-fuel requirement goes back to 1957-59. The US and Germany also agreed to it early on before dropping it. The L60 worked, but things got rushed.

I've really enjoyed this series. I think it's good viewing for both enthusiasts and people with no prior knowledge.

One of my favourite RU-vid channels. This is how a museum should use its material. How much we could learn if all museums took their own subject this seriously

Great video. I really enjoyed it. Would love to see more videos about internal workings of tank engines and transmissions and other internal systems. Cheers!

Amazing, thank you for sharing!

Very instructive channel. Thanks to Chris and the team.

I thoroughly enjoy Chris and his presentation - this was a really interesting video !

Another great video. As a REME fitter/mechanic in the 1980's the L60 was infamous.. Such a shame that such a great tank was let down by such a piece of junk in the form of the L60. 😢

A brilliant presentation - well done!

Quickly becoming my favorite channel, hope to visit the museum one day!!

This is a fascinating angle to view tank development history, Cheers.

The quality of Chris' videos and the film crew's video production is outstanding, world class!

I think this was an excellent Video. The Tank museum is uniqly well placed to do such videos because you have all the important historical artifacts there ready and waiting as illustrativ aids.

This video is so informative, professional and well put together ❤

Lovin' it!! Excellent series thank you!

The L60 was not V6 but a 6cyl (12 piston) twin opposed 2-Stroke engine.

Another excellent, informative video!

I was hoping to learn more on the turboshaft engine in the Abrams since it is so different from other tank engines, can you include that in future videos?

this episode was very interesting and informative, thanks guys... its sad there are no more Evolution series videos coming :(

Enjoyed this, thanks!

Great video. Curious why the addition of the turbine engines was left out. Lighter, more compact with increased reliability and power.

I am glad you mentioned the Leyland L60. It's such an awesome and unique idea but was a premature technology. It has opposing pistons which meeting in the middle and fire away from each other to increase RPM and efficiency. A downside is that it requires two crank shafts. I wish it was developed further.

Some time back I watched a hot rod building show on TV and the guy had huge gasoline engine out of a Sherman tank. He had the instruction book from the tank and it described how to properly warm the engine up. Start up, run at like 2000 rpm for 10 minutes. That should consume around 8 gallons of fuel. I thought , what kind of fuel tank they have, 500 gallons? 8 gallons just to warm it up.

Great episode. Really missing the workshop chats though. But Aussie Armour channel is a great substitute 🙂

Fascinating as always!

I was the first person to drive a challenger 2 in service. I drove it off the transporter when it was delivered to the ScotsDG in Jan 1998.

Always great topics by very knowledgeable people. Thank you very very much

great information and well presented - thanks

South Africa upgraded each Centurion with a 29-litre Continental turbocharged diesel engine and a new transmission adopted from the M60 Patton.[87] The refurbished Centurions were also armed with a South African variant of the Royal Ordnance L7 105 mm main gun.[87] in 1985.[87]

Thank you. Excellent video.

Smashing video. Thank you.

Great documentary !

Nice I enjoyed this video

Excellent. Interesting to learn more on the third (mobility) piece. Thanks!!

Fascinating video, thank you so much.

Another awesome video. Perhaps you could have talked a bit about turbines considering the Abrams uses it (such a relevant tank in the last decades) and the Soviets also decided to have a go at it. Sill a lot of great content and I understand it is British oriented.

Great video!

When I see a new video by you guys I immediately click!!! I love learning about things I didn't even know I was interested in!

Vert interesting history, thanks for sharing!

Thank you for all the top quality videos and sorry for not contributing before.

Excellent Thanks for sharing.

Great video and outstanding discussion. Any chance of a similar presentation on tank suspension? My fascination with tracked armor focuses on suspension, steering, and vision (slots, protectoscopes, periscopes, etc). Guns, armor, and combat not so much. Thanks for the education on engines!

Really like Chris and this content more please

Excellent !! More please

Your videos are excellent!👍

2:18 I don't know if much of you lived in a city where it would get 40ºC in the summer but I lived. You can get all naked and not move at all and you'd still sweat like a pig on a bonfire, I can't imagine the disconfort inside one of those WWI tanks if it really got to 45ºC in there.

A video on fire control systems and night vision would be good

Really enjoying Chris as a host and his content.. Transmissions and suspension are just as critical to mobility. Please cover that.

Three topics that I would like to have covered: 1) the effect of strategic materials (or lack/shortage thereof) on tank design 2) the effect of high-tech production/development capacity on tank design, and 3) anti-aircraft tanks and related vehicles, and how they relate to their conventional counterparts.

I've been loving these series that are more expensive.

I love the rumbling of the engines

You folks have the coolest tank museum in the world!

great stuff mobility an interesting topic, where I live I regularly see armour travelling past on transporters. A feature on transport may be interesting, prime movers, trains etc.

Well done!

That intro transition deserves an Oscar 😂

Legendary achievements of Sir Harry Ricardo 1885- 1974. ❤ Cool suave name!! Thank you very much Tank Museum ❤

I realize that it's not a British design, and that you may not have one at the museum, but I am surprised that you didn't close with the Honeywell AGT1500.

I do like these videos. Not because I'm a warmongering fool, but because very often they cover pieces of equipment that I was very familiar with, or, one of my ancestors was. History (a very boring subject for many) has shown (dare I say taught?) that mankind can make the same mistakes over and over again, and that, on many occasions it takes the blood of heroes, villains and civilians to resolve many issues. A few have commented on the 'lost stories' of veterans, or, the veterans reluctance to share. It's been my experience that veterans will share/talk to either other veterans or younger 'operatives'. Organisations like the British Legion and other Regimental-like associations are vital for this. Thanks for the vid, and thanks to all those who contributed below. God bless

Good information

9:50 "after the bugs had been worked out it was fairly relaible" eventhough this statement is true it is kind of an understatement how reliable the multi bank was compared to other tank engines, it had the reliability of a car engine which is saying a lot. Once it broke down though it would take ages to repair.

Fascinating, as ever.

My favorites by far are the M4 Sherman radial and the Abrams turbine engine. Just radical yet effective. Always fascinating.

Interesting , Thank You .

I have the impression that tank engine application was driven more by "what is available" or "what can be adapted" rather than engines developed expressly for tanks. What would be the important characteristics for a tank engine- torque, the ability to use available fuels, reliability? Aircraft engine development during WWII was a furious race to keep ahead of the other guy- down to tearing down engines and sampling fuels from crashed enemy planes to see what they were using. Were captured tanks and other vehicles given the same treatment?

No love for the gas turbines in the M1 Abrams series? 😀 As a former M1 crewman, we got to love/hate the whine of that turbine running.

Early tank engines are so unique. Either special engines got “dumbed down” like aircraft engines into a tank, like a Continental radial or Meteor V12 Or boring reliable straight 6 engines become a 30 cylinder Chrysler Multibank or Bedford flat 12. And some tanks even got engines meant for the job like a Double Detroit Sherman. Just awesome stuff.

Thanks!

I would like to here more about upgrades that were being worked on during the war that never made it into service like the Fuel injection system for the HL230

In short. 1. Metallurgy. 2. Fuel Injection 3. Diesel. 4. Turbocharging.

Would love to see more of this with other countries tank engines

Love the film footage of the Whippet just blazing along a road until a tiny car just whips right by it! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Great film. Although I am surprised. The turbine engine. In the M1A1 wasn’t mentioned

Love that multi-bank.🤩

You gotta love how for decades the solution for finding a good engine for tank was "let's take a look at what airforce has right now and derate it" and then with the coming of jet age that just stopped... Also it's still fascinating how WWI tank era ended with 400hp Liberty and then that engine served through (at least half of) WWII like no big deal.

Great video on an important part of tank design. I never could figure out why they didn't turn to a properly designed diesel engine for Chieftain after the multi-fuel failed so badly at the start, but I guess there's a lot of inertia and 'sunk cost fallacy' so no one wanted to make the call (?).

Tank you

Should have talked about the Leclerc with it's 1500hp

I would like to hear more specifics about tank transmissions and steering systems, since it's very different from automobiles that most people are at least somewhat familiar with. the continuous track requires differential steering, which means that there are no front wheels to turn and you steer by having one track move faster than the other. the steering systems themselves are an essential function of the transmission. this all has an effect on mobility, but the transmission is probably the most crucial element, because they can be surprisingly prone to failure. of course nowadays the engine and the transmission are combined into a powerpack, which is easier to replace as a whole. someone else has to determine, what was faulty, while the tank marches on with a new powerpack. when it comes to upgrading older tanks, a new powerpack is probably one of the first things done and the video should offer reasons why. in the video differences between gasoline, diesel and multifuel engines were mentioned, but gas turbines and opposed-piston engines (like the Leyland L60) could have been mentioned as well and compared to more conventional diesel engines, but time is a finite resource. the different steering systems are the reason why some tanks had two engines (one for each track) for example and to give another example some tanks can neutral steer due to their steering system, while others cannot, although even without neutral steering the turning radius of a tracked vehicle is still a lot smaller compared to a wheeled vehicle. I would say that while the engine affects the mobility of the tank, it is crucial to note that the ability to use different fuels and fuel efficiency are important characteristics of the engine, since they determine the range (with the volume of the fuel tanks) of the tank and some of its logistical requirements (i.e. fuel). another absolute essential part of the mobility off-road is the suspension of the tracks, but it might be better to focus on one thing at a time and talk about tank suspensions some other time, although as yet another example I think many are familiar with the Christie suspension of the T-34. interestingly no modern tank uses it anymore, but that's enough, since this comment has far too many words already, I am well aware that the video is more about engines in particular rather than mobility in general and I do think that it's a very good video overall, so this is not a criticism in any way. I just think it's important to understand that mere engine power will not be useful without a robust transmission, which links the engine to the tracks. there have also been tanks with an electric drive, which means that there is an additional step, where the engine is used to generate electricity and that in turn is used to power electric motors that move the tracks. the advantage of such a system is usually the ability to move forwards or backwards at the same speed. now to return to the topic of transmission perhaps it would be good to remind how tanks can differ in the number of reverse gears and by extension their reverse speed, which has been a subject of discussion as the T-72 has a painfully slow reverse speed due to its gearing ratio, which maximizes torque at the expense of speed. on the other hand a Western upgrade like the Renk ESM 350 would give it 5 reverse gears instead of 1 and the ability to neutral steer. anyway that should be enough rambling about tanks for today.

I would like to see what was the major(in field) issues with all tanks and the ingenuity tankers did to fix.

I would like to see a complete history and information about tank transmissions and steering systems from many countries.

Another factor with tank engines is also the weight. The heavier the engine the more the tank increases in weight and so the more power that’s needed to get it going. That’s why some engines were developed from aircraft engines because they are both light and powerful, like the rotary engine in the M3 Lee/Grant, the M3 Stuart, and the M4 Sherman, the Meteor engine that several British tanks used, or even the turbine that the M1 Abrams uses.

Man, I could listen to Chris all day. A wealth of information. I was hoping he would touch on the U.S. Abrams with the turbine engine. Great coverage otherwise.

Would like to hear more about the development & evolution of various engines like the Meteor & others.

It took me many years to realise that in the 1930s, the tank had an engine requirement that meant it needed a specifically-deigned engine: truck engines were too small and weak, plane engines were converted, but usually were far from ideal (wrong layout, too sophisticated, and needed for aeroplanes). So in the 30s they are trying to work out suspension and engine solutions without really being able to repurpose familiar civilian methods. Tanks advance quickly once torsion bars and proper 500hp-class engines appear. This is more subtle than the simple gun size/armour thickness/top speed triangle we think about.

I find the history of soviet/russian engines pretty cool. Outside of the Abrahams Jet turbine I feel like they have a lot more cool engines that dont follow standard orientations or featuresets. Things like their X shaped engines, opposed piston engines, the smoke screen feature that uses rich exhaust etc. Lots of cool things related to engines.

Greta video as always. I wonder when we will see a fully electric tank?

one doesn't realize the incredible hugeness of these tanks and their parts until there's someone standing right beside them who looks like he's been green screened in really badly xD

Armor, Firepower, Mobility this is what we call The Triforce of Asskicking.

Please do more tank doctrine videos