Recovery, Battle Damage Assessment and Repair 

I was a Bradley mechanic for 15 yrs in the US Army. My first unit was 3rd ACR and my first section was Recovery. I have driven and commanded M88's for most of my career. And drove the hell out of them in Iraq doing Recovery missions and lifting missions. The M88A1 was my favorite vehicle as a mechanic/recovery operator. I loved that work and the M88's were extremely comfortable for 2 man crews in the field. 3 could sleep ok but 2 was the best. I can never see a M88 and not miss doing the work I did back then. Allot of hard times. But also allot of great times.

Last time I was on an M1A1, exercise was over, it was pitch dark, and we were heading back to the motor pool after 2 weeks out. We slid off the tank trail into a huge ditch and the fun begun. Threw both tracks uphill, one of the downhill road wheels hit a nice boulder and blew out the wheel’s hub. Needed the M88 with 90 ton snatch block to drag us out. Break track on both sides and have 88 straighten out to put back on. Replace road wheel. Took all night. We got back to the motor pool next morning to see rest of the company squeaky clean and us coming in looking like dirty tired hell…. Good times!

Perun mentioned in his last Q&A, you helping him out in the beginning. I'm very happy to hear that you take such a positive attitude to others in the space

I got to see an M88 ski down a hill in South Korea where it ended up in some farmer's living room at the bottom of the hill. It was like watching a car wreck in slow motion.

While working in a Navy repair shop, we had what was known as a "pre-expended bin", basically a small room full of parts. We could go in the room and take any part we needed without doing any paperwork. We did have a supply person that would keep the room stocked and accountable, while doing all the paperwork. 'Doing the maintenance on motors and pumps was made much quicker and easier by doing it this way. It was almost like a todays hardware store / large maintenance shops where distributor's will keep the shelves and bins stocked. It worked and us wrench turners would actually be doing maintenance instead of filling out 1250's and 1348's. (Note, this was back in the mid to late 80's.)

In Iraq, I was a Marine Infantryman in the early 2000’s. My highest billet on the vehicle was as a Vehicle Commander of an LAV-25 (briefly…. Few weeks to a month or two before a new VC was assigned (I was not a School trained 0313). I was a Sgt and the bulk of that deployment I was a Chief Scout for the dismounts). On one of my deployments I once cleaned out my friend’s remains from an LAV-AT. An RPG round detonated against the vision block while he was popped up out of the gunners hatch and cut him in half (for all intents and purposes). I still remember his face and name to this day and I always will remember it. The turret of the AT vehicle was a “hammerhead turret” and it was completely shot out and destroyed from the blast and fire. Small arms fire which also hit the vehicle in the ambush had punctured all our POL amd spare diesel and flattened almost all eight of the tires and detonated the smoke grenades (the smoke grenade clusters on armored vehicles are not made out of “armor”. They are a softer metal and when hit with 7.62x39 they deform and get holes (i can attest this is a fact). There was no “higher echelon”of care for the damage that was done to the turret. The sights could be swapped out easily but the hydraulic system and some of the turret framing were bent and destroyed so we replaced it “in the field”. I remember “cleaning” my friend out from all the nooks and crannies below the turret. The spaces you never get to. We had to pull the “drain plugs” on the vehicle. It was a horror. Because the platoon was short a gunner. I was “promoted”. So not only did I clean my friend out of the vehicle he was killed in. When we dropped in the new turret and did two days worth of wrench turning and cleaning. When the vehicle went back into the fight. I was the new Gunner. We had other vehicles that were “deadlined”. Any breaching of the USMC LAV hill was a “no go”. They would never let the vehicle operate in Iraq again. Back in depots in California or wherever they probably had the capability to mend the armor plates or replace. We hit a lot of IED’s and I remember at one time taking a picture of Ffive different LAV’s in our FOB. In an “out of the way” place if there is such a thing on a tiny base. But those vehicles had all been destroyed beyond repair. Marines had died in some of them. We once had a Sgt that was crushed inside of an LAV turret cage. The vehicle was flipped upside down by a massive buried IED. That was also a horror. My vehicle once hit a mine. Blew off A-Arms. The brake drum looked like the hammer of Thor had flattened an entire side of it at an inhuman type of bending for a whole brake drum. Punched holes in differentials. Flattened five or six tires (I forget how many. I just remember “building tires” or getting the run flats in the new tire in the field involved hours of cussing and ratchet straps and hammers. That mine strike vehicle was put on a Low boy recovery truck and we got it functional again in a few days. The mechanics and crews. Not combat related but we once bogged down and entire platoon of LAV-AT’s. Four sixteen ton vehicles eventually were bogged down in a wadi that was not on maps and indistinguishable unless you really knew the desert. It was going on hour 50 something. We had spent over two separate days digging in sleep/dig/ radio watch cycles. We had all our pioneer tools plus engineering stakes and sand bags on the vehicles which we used. The half filled sandbags can be used to form a “road” on a wadi which will keep the tires from sinking if done properly. Some headway can be made but we were almost a 600 yards into the morass when the vehicle bogged down and subsequent vehicles bogged down in the recovery efforts (every LAV has a winch). We sweat and bleed and worked for days burning hot and not a stick of shade for miles and miles. The only shade was under the vehicle or in its shadow. Until finally some higher authority got us an Abraham’s tank recovery vehicle which spooled out it’s massive recovery cable and “snow plowed” the vehicles the entire distance needed to reach solid ground. Hit boulders and did major damage to some of the vehicles just recovering. Flattened and destroyed tires. Damaged suspensions. Damaged trim vane. Etc. the vehicles once recovered went again directly on the “low boy” big recovery trucks. From my essay you can tell I was very interested in this video. It’s excellent btw.

2008 Musa Qala Afghan. Came under contact just as we were crossing the river outside the FOB....driver nails it to get out of the ambush zone....breaks the transfer box....had to tow rope it out underfire.....I was upto my waist in freezing water, trying to attach the rope blind as the towing eye of the other vehicle was underwater...an arse twitching moment.

Having worked in (civil) logistics, one thing impresses me much since a long time. Ukraine fields just about every bit of kit (not just tanks) made in east & west for the lat 50 years (and then some, down to Maxims). Getting spares to the right place must be wild.

After not being able to start our tank at a range at Ft Irwin after hours of work, we released the final drives and a M88 towed us all the way back to the motor pool, where "mechanics" continued to work on the problem. Eventually a dude who had been a tanker in Viet Nam came by asked us what the problem was. He stuck his head in the drivers hatch, yelled "clear" and our tank immediately started. I found that it helps to put the transmission all the way in Park.

Rolled into Baghdad back in April 2003, was the driver of a M113A2 in the combat engineer battalion. With the supply lines still being built we were always short of parts. We were running 5-6 missions a day disposing of UXOs and other munitions. We put a lot of hours on the tracks. I need new track as the rubber bushings in the track pins had worn out and my track tension couldn't be set properly. I kept blowing out the seals on the piston connected to the idler to keep track tension. Thankfully we had some old shot up Iraqi M113s that we cannibalized to get parts. I took both pistons but broke them too. Finally when I deadlined my track due to safety issues all of a sudden a pallet of new track showed up. Of course it showed up at 1800 so I had to do a full track change in the dark. Good times.

Former Maintenance Platoon Leader from the Cold War. Great to see my M-88A1 (ARV on the M-60 tank chassis) guys getting some love from The Chieftain.

"If the soldiers can't break it, it won't need repair" As a retired track and truck mechanic, I know that soldiers take the term "Unbreakable" as a challenge. I worked recovery in SPFA units. I appreciate this video, thanks for explaining how we keep them working from crew up through dpeot.

Finally, a good military tech related video this week

Perun mentioned that when he was first blowing up, you gave him a lot of help and advice on the YT game. Good on you.

Good one. My medic track blew its radiator one day at Ft. Irwin, and we got recovered by the squadron M-88. My driver and I were impressed by the raw power of the vehicle.

"captain, if the repairs are done 'by the book,' hours would seem like days."

Across the street from our barracks at Fort Leonard , MO in the 80s there was a compound with armored recovery vehicles. The two types I remember seeing were the heavy (on a M60 chassis ) and a smaller lighter recovery vehicle.

You have never seen a vehicle get stuck until you stick an M-48 tank and then his buddy gets his tank stuck trying to pull him out and the M-88 comes and pull both out at the same time. the M-88 was an awesome machine. GIs will be GIs.

Watched this before but this video was well put together and tackles a part of war that few think of but is Majorly important.

Ya! Ordnance to the fore. BDAR was always the easy part. The hard part was keeping units from turning any non-op systems into a convenient Cann-point (cannibalization).

I watched this on Perun's channel but I wanted to watch it again. You are dah man, Chieftain.

As a former tool and parts attendant I got to do a few controlled exchanges with a UH-60 Hanger queen we had and the other air worthy air frames.

7:49 Commonwealth usage tends to be "Equipment Collection Point" (ECP). Effectively where 1st line hands off to 2nd line. Level of repair tends to be driven by repair times, the longer the repair time, the further back the repair is conducted (say swap out of power pack = 1st line, turret lift and repair turret ring = more a 2nd or 3rd line).

The chieftain continues to be a unique gem on RU-vid. Love the content Sir

For an historic perspective there are some WWII REME Recovery training films in the IMW Archive. They have been uploaded to RU-vid. I'll try for links

Great memory excercise. And you kept it in a manner that is entertaining. Thanks

3:30 I would be that weirdo, I would happily sit there and read the manual for fun, because I'm a geek, a nerd, and I love collecting knowledge 🤣🤣

How has it taken me this long to notice the tank round behind the desk wearing googly eyes and a hat? 😂

Excellent! I now have a better understanding of modern maintenance, in the US Army. Things have changed since 1982. Geoff Who will go at the manual again.

I’m so glad I didn’t have much OJT on recovery. Only few in my career mainly because I was lucky. Best JOB I ever had , stay in the Tank.

Great report. I trained as a generator mechanic instructor depot level, then 19D4H ending as 11B4X. Most on the reserve side as an instructor. Lots of fun on everything from M113 worn out training use only from Nam to M901 ITV WW II Jeeps to various Hummers with no doors installed. Never had a crew under me throw a track lots of time helping others with broken tracks bogged a M113A3 in soft mud good training getting it out. One LT almost died when the crew forgot to put all the drain plugs in before we did a improvised creek run another officer had a M48 rating on his license and was able to get a M48A5 from the motor pool at Joliet Training area and a lot of Tow Cables. Followed by some messy diving by the Crew to get everything rigged then a smooth pull to high ground. Fools did not drain and refill the final drives so by the time it was checked by permanent staff it was off to rebuild heaven. I warned the officers twice on the Final Drive issue. One of my dad's friends served in Korea as a machinist on one of 6 LST set up as an ordnance depot at Pusan. Lots of rebuilds done on the Ships.

Best gasp was perfect - I'm still gasping for breath after you race through RBDAR And a Happy (if breathless) New Year to you and your family

As a recovery mechanic in the British army we operated on the crate system. Officially if we were called to a job caused by crew negligence we were supposed to fill out a form and the crew would be billed 10% of the cost for recovery however that only ever happened if the crew didn't spontaneously donate a "crate" case of beer to the recovery section.

10:46 if you are looking for the photo Chieftain XD

Well, I've watched it twice now! Enjoyed this more as I wasn't thinking about all the other stuff. Cheers.

Remember the standard cost of a like vehicle recovery is a case of beer

Thank you, for grand tour of repair and recovery

As a retired 91X this video made me feel seen

Great talk Chieftain. More....more.

The XO's circle X can be your best friend and training on the 105D sight is never time wasted.

Awesome. Thank you for the education.

3:20 this is something that I do not understand why it’s not part of initial training. I think that after AIT or as a required part of in processing to a unit a soldier should have to do some form of vehicle/generator/mos related maintenance class. Whether that be an actual drivers training course or just a quick 16 hour course on the PMCS of Generators & Whatever Vic the unit/mos commonly uses. I say this because I’ve been in 8 years and have never had to do any sort of “serious/difficult” vehicle maintenance (I’ve been lucky) so I just don’t know how to. And units I’ve been in always struggle to have enough licensed drivers. It’s kinda funny I have the military drivers license for Korea & Europe, but not the US so I was told I can’t drive here till I go through drivers training. I’m still asked to drive though because I’m one of the few that at least has some form of military drivers license, despite having only driven less then a dozen times in those 8 years. My first unit had a unique approach, command was tired of vehicles being poorly maintained. So they made mechanics do the 10 level maintenance with us helping!

quick question: where do you access the Aberdeen Proving Ground test results, used in so many of your videos? Do you plan ahead than visit every now and then to look for what you need, or is there an online database where it is all stored (and if so, can the public access it)?

I'm proud that I can say that I followed you before you got all famous from Perun's mention. 😀😉😏

Oh, I remember BDAR for aircraft lessons when I taught ANCOC.

Thank you Chieftain!

Excellent. Thank you.

Great video

Retired 19K here. If there's one word I hate even to this day it's Recovery. You just haven't lived until you've field replaced a torsion bar.

My MST often carried one spare M1 turret traversing gearbox and a bunch of rebuild kits. The 45K would swap our spare into a tank then rebuild the take out unit to put on our spares shelf.

Thanks Nick

I wonder how drones are going to affect when/where/how combat vehicles are repaired in the future.

Love this!

Gasping at the amount of improvement in my grasp.

Ok If your track jacks are missing and you sign for the tank YOU BUY IT : tie tow cable to the tracks get a good size log throw between the tracks , dig a hole if need be : you should hook the cable to the oppoity side get in close the hatch : first uphook the finnal drives . Sorry I am writing this as you talk -- At Fort Hood I had a battalion maintenance first sergeant as our First Sargeant I was a E2 so spent most of my time in motor pool are the field (oh I am a Tanker) in a tank company . Well our First Sergeant love to spend his time down in the Motor Pool . SO he train me on all kinds of thing about tank repair :=) Sound good right Hell word got out so every time a tank Broke , Guess who had to work on it ! Worst was spending 70+ hours replacing 2 packs on 2 tanks that WAS NOT MY TANK . I can not remember how many 24 hours I spent working on tanks in our company . Replace parts , how much booze you have !?

If you have ever seen a cable or mooring line snap, you will understand why you want to be under armor when you take up the slack. A mooring line will come back at most of 800 feet per second (240m/s). And will quite literally cut you in half if you happen to be in the way.

I am appreciative of knowing the thought that goes behind the the tanker aspect of operations. What goes behind the whole combined operation is mind boggling. I don’t think the Russians are there yet.

Are 'goodie boxes' (unofficial stashes of extra parts) a common practice? Hypothetically, of course...

10:47 - Friendlies down! I repeat! Friendlies down!

Good idea to make it easy to find your segment in support of the black and orange presentation master easy to find.

I imagine damaged tanks shipped to Poland for repairs/rebuild follow the procedures, but the Ukrainians seem very good at adaption, I think they are making more ad hoc decisions about field repairs.

Comment for the algorithm (and also because it’s very interesting)

The video we've been waiting for!

I have no knowledge of tanks, but can imagine most would just be repaired to the minimum for the task at hand

The most replayed scene is the picture falling down. 10:44

I guess the video purportedly showing Ukrainian drone operators dropping thermite grenades or similar onto/ into what appear to be Russian Tanks and APC , is to make sure that if the Russians make an attempt to recover it, it is damaged to an extent that it probably is not cost effective.

In my unit we ran the cables pre hooked up instead of on the turret.

General Gasp, the best commander the Army ever saw, taking wind out of men's lungs, opposition's and subordinates alike!

One incident has shown that Russian tanks come with documentation that has a contact number for the factory. This allows a Ukrainian tank commander in the mood to call Chelyabinsk and troll the factory managers about the quality of captured equipment 😹

What would the appropriate manual be for the World War II version of this procedure?

I think I would have LOVED to been a logistics officer for an armored unit! But they don't take flat footers anymore🤗😅

OTJ... Kind of like knowing to keep a cheater bar for the tensioning wrench in the sponson?

I'm asking this when it wasn't mentioned at least immediately, but when the question came to me At which point does the crew's own recovery attempt take place? If their tank is hit once and can't continue fighting, do they abandon the vehicle until they can return to it, or do they (have to) attempt recovery before leaving? For example, let's say the suspension seems broken becuase the tank is tilting to one side, the tank *might* be able to move but they are under fire and feel like they can't spend the time to risk the attempt for getting hit again and most likely with more internal injury? Is there penalty for not attempting to recover or repair a vehicle, or approximate and note its sustained damage, before abandoning it?

Aussie Armour always have a tow-cable connected at one end! Tracks CAN tow Wheels, I've done it often! Our Recovery Mechs are Mechanics with a towing License... (The "R" suffix allows them to operate anything, for a short distance, which is ALWAYS subject to interpretation!) Never a hard-working mob of greasy, grumpy beloved to be found! The Rule was... always have a brew ready for when Recovery get here! Good vid!! The unseen side of Armour is always Maintenance, more Mantenance, Break-downs and trying to get comfortable... as All Cavalry Soldiers deserve!

Speaking of recovery operations and equipment, given the interest in developing and adopting new armored vehicles (particularly M1E3), is there any news or expectation of development of new recovery and transport vehicles? It seems like there have already been reported instances of M88s being insufficient to cover the most-upgraded Abrams in certain field conditions, not including the experiences with them in Ukraine.

German tankers OTOH just call the ADPC (Allgemeine Deutsche Panzer Club) and that sends a yellow painted maintenance vehicle that fixes the problems

Interesting because our bulldozer has no breaks (well minimal on one side) and on a hill I need to use the blade as a break. A blade could have been used on a tank, did any tanks have a blade?

The underside of the thumbnail tank reminds me of a beetle.

I do hope the army's 'temporary' is more temporary than the one used by programmers, where it generally goes as follows "there is nothing more permanent than a temporary solution". In software the temporary solution is often someone building a prototype, and before you know it everyone likes using the prototype to the point it can no longer be replaced. I think the US army actually had something similar, even though they did replace the field prototypes with proper solutions like the gunner shield on M113 or the up-armoring of HMMVW.

Hi Chieftain, I like the RCD shirt in the intro!

The picture dropping 'triggered' my ADHD... I was like WTH was that.... and back to listening/watching the informative video...lol. Oh Duct tape.... back into immersion.

I wonder how many people notice when you slide into Cold War speak. Soviet. On a separate note I like that desk

love the book "how to kill a panther tank" on the shelf

Happy new Year Chieftain

I do not know how I feel about you calling me old school. LOL

Would love to see you rate tanks by their ability to climb in and out, comfortable chairs, or some other silly measurement for April Fools

TankDaddy returns to entertain us

Wait so using duct tape to strap armour on is officially in the manual. At this point my assumption if mechanical part is fixed but has not moved then apply copious ammounts of WD-40(or equivilent) and then tension the track is also in the manual.

Background movement ? had to go back - ah, the young one's photo drop.

Confused about 'combat capable' - as per example, the tank with broken thermal sight is sent back to unit. But is it in the system? Request for a new thermal sight is on file and tank earmarked as 'as we have the spares and time to fix it, unit must send the tank back'?

C.E.S. stands for Complete Equipment Schedule.

Okay - The Chieftain - I have a question on this (if you can answer) - What is the process by which an Expedient Repair gets 'approved' to an Official Repair? I'm thinking of the Cope Cages and other Battlefield modifications which later became 'Standard' - or is there no such process and it's more a case of doing what others are doing?

Greetings 🤗

You say tracked vehicles can't tow wheeled vehicles because it damages their steering, but you don't say whether it is the wheeled vehicle or the tracked vehicle that gets damaged, and I can't think of why either would be damaged.

Greetings from the Old Country, Nicholas. Do you really resort to taping armour in place ? That tape must be good stuff 🙂

The following is the second part of a two part British Army training film explaining how to recover a tank with a Scammell recovery lorry. Genuinely fascinating, and the 2 would still teach something. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8e8Hxh9jW7c.html

Chieftain, How do you fix bounce hit on a tank that left a groove in the tank armor ?

The books listing to port and stbd in the background are distracting.

My fav armor are "engineering" vehicles !!!!! Love it !!!!! The Russian "jab" is beneath you. Stick to armor, not "rumors" ........... 🙂

What is the new guidon on the "Love Me" wall?