What kept the Chieftain MBT from being the best of its time? Tank Professor Bruce Newsome explains! 

I have a Chieftain MK10 with a 13A L60 Leyland Engine. The 13a L60 Leyland engine was towards the end of the Chieftain MOD life proved to be a reliable engine - I also own a rare and never used 15A L60 Engine painted in a musty yellow/greenish colour with the red top cover, this engine had the last of the improved upgrades and was only ever fitted to an handful of Chieftains. Our Chieftain Mk10 is also fitted out with the improved fire control system that's was fitted to the Challenger 1 tank or at least the gunners sighting system was upgraded!

On another occasion in Berlin, with the tanks all in place, for the Allied Forces Day Parade, while we were waiting for the start, one of the tanks caught fire, for the Germans watching this was something new, some Schadenfreude to revel in, however when the ammo started being unloaded, they all beat a hasty retreat. The tanks in Berlin were always "bombed up", ready for if and when the balloon should ever go up, fortunately it never did. Exercises in Berlin were always fun, nearly every time the French were the 'live' enemy, they got a hard time, there seemed to be no limit to the amount of schmulies and thunder flashes available, it was handed out like confetti, as well as trying to be careful to load blanks for the GPMG's and not live rounds. Oh happy days. Notwithstanding the various ways exercise ammo could be 'doctored' to make the result more interesting.

When we got the Chieftain and took it out driver training, we found the engine would have a problem of running away, so to get in back in control we would lift up the decks and PEE on the fuel injector, this tended to cool it down, but after a bit would smell a bit.

I joined the REME in 79, once trained spent the next 18 years in W Germany and Berlin plugging leaks in fan drive hubs, changing sprag clutches, hydro starters, electric starters, centrifugal clutches and 12 element FIPs. I would not change a minute of all the stress and days without kip.

The chieftain is an absolute battle winner, if it breaks down in a good combat position

This was great - very informative. And I appreciate that you just let him talk and not interview him (as other sites do) which can drag out an interview and sometimes renders it less complete. Thanks for this.

Unreliable, without a doubt but Ohhhhh...........the sound of it. I’m transported back to forests of north Germany when I served with the Royal Engineers, hearing these beasts on the move in the dead of night, music, sheer music.

Ah yes, the British Layland L60 power pack. One FTX, we had two pack lifts. (replacing the engine twice) We did also manage to wangle 5 days and nights broken down (the tank, not us) across the road from a pub, and a Greek Restaurant. (this was in West Germany) Every night drunk, and well fed. And yes they allowed us in in our manky state, as My Commanders wife had actually driven to where we were, and brought loads of Scotch Whisky as currency!

Very cool to see....As an old American Tread Head who serve overseas in West Germany in the Cold War Days in the early 1980s...it is cool to see this video and hear the stories from our British Allies...We All served to keep the Russians and East Germans on their side of the fence ...hope the ol girl will be restored and taken care of .....

I were infantry but In Germany and Canada I worked a lot alongside chieftain tanks. They were Brilliant and those tankies knew how to hide but yes, the engine were a pile of crap. The irony, you often saw a centurion recovery tank towing a chieftain with a broken engine. I were on the queen's jubilee parade in Germany and it were said that just our division used up every spare chieftain engine in Germany just to complete the parade. who true that were, I don't know but it would not have surprised me.

Interesting point about the Chieftain L60's quoted power figures, they included the cooling pack power draw. So add another 150 bhp if you want to compare to other tanks. Chieftain was actually just as quick as Leopard 1 despite having 'less' power and being much heavier. Later versions were near 1000bhp and considerably faster.

I wish he had showed us the actual tank parts instead of just standing there and talking about them.

When talking of the Chieftain engine a lot of people seem to forget that back in the 60's no one was making suitable diesel engines. Modern turbo-charging simply didn't exist. It wasn't until the appearance of the RR CV12 in the late 70's that diesel engines could achieve respectable power density.

The Chieftan has all the interesting (sexy) features of the Tigers and Panthers. It is Britain's greatest tank that the nation sought with the the Comet during WW2 and didn't achieve.

That was an interesting talk. The chap is a good speaker.

No heater. bloody freezing in the winter . Only saving grace was the BV.

I worked at BSC in Sheffield in the early 70s where the turrets were cast, I’ve often thought that the soldiers sat inside never saw the turrets after crack detection, we used to chip and grind the cracks out some were inches deep, then weld up and make good. Sometimes the army would bring a turret in that had been shot at, we would weld it up and send it back.

I was a gunner on Chieftain when it had a ranging gun rather than laser ranging. When we were on the ranges and the tank next to us fired it's ranging gun, it was like someone hitting our hull with a sledgehammer, when the main gun went off, 52 tonnes of tank rocked, but when we fired our gun there was less noise from it than the gun next door.

Tanks for the video Sofie . The Prof knows things great Job . About the Title " Chieftain " I did not see Maj Moran at all ? Happy New Year .

Enemy tanker thinks: _Bugger ! That chieftain over there is just shrugging off my AT rounds and that massive gun pointing straight at me looks like it could rip us in half but I should be OK as its engine is said to be very unrelia!!**~~~@!!BANG!_

I worked at 23. Base Workshop REME in Wetter (south of Dortmund )Germany. And the L60 engines were scrap compared to Leopard 1 and his easy to change and reliable powertrain. Later I served Bundeswehr Leo1 as a loader two times in Shilo Manitoba Canada. 1-2 days Chieftain vs. under an hour Leopard 1. This says it all about export succes of the good sounding Chieftain. Oliver Huth

Good old steel pal! The tank museum in the city of Munster in Lower Saxony/Germany features some of their vehicles with a cateye mounted in the muzzle wich returns the flashlight when photographed.

1.35min, this chap states that this particular tank was rescued on its way to a scrapyard. Who intervened and saved it? The A-Team?

It's so sad the chieftain story, it helped allot with the develepment of composit armors, and upgradeds in firecontrole systems, the computer age ect. but at the end of every chieftain story..... "But it had a shitty engine"....... while all other Nato country ditched the multifuel requirment en went for riliable diesel engines.

Chieftain questions: (1) How many links are there on new tracks? (2) How many times did the driver need to ratchet the handbrake before it was fully applied? (3) What is a B.O.T? (4) How many vent-tubes can be fitted into the magazine? (5) How many cans of Carlsberg can you fit inside a charge bin?

Really informative video, I could listen to this guy all day! One small criticism, the camera work was a bit distracting, moving about all the time, it’s not necessary, especially as you are not using a radio mic, so when you pan away with the camera his voice becomes hard to hear.

It's quite refreshing to hear about tanks from a woman's point of view. keep up the great work...

I was in a MK 3 71-73 and our engine was reliable never let us down but as someone said earlier it was cold in winter great gun though

I cannot understand why such a jewel would be headed to the scrap yard. Quarantined tanks! Never heard of such! Perhaps that means checking closely for hidden gold as well? Wouldn't that be a marvelous find for the museum.

I always loved the Chieftan, a mate was a Sgt Mjr in REME and always said about the problems.with the Engine. Plus field maintenance problems. Such a shame.

IIRC the 380+mm figure for armor was including Stillbrew from the mid-80s. Chieftain baseline turret armor was only about 240mm, similar to the T-62, and far less than the T-64. So it wasn’t the best protected of the era, but survivability should be better thanks to the ammunition storage system. The mobility problems largely turned this tank into a heavy tank in all but name. By comparison the T-10 had better mobility, and it was no better than the Conqueror. I’m curious why they went with the spotting machine gun when coincidence rangefinders were standard on NATO tanks at the time. Surely optical coincidence was more effective at long range since spotting rounds are limited to 2,600 yards and the 120mm rifle was accurate to far greater range.

My guess is bashing the L60. Had it been designed for a single fuel, it would've worked wonderfully. I would've opted for diesel given the choice.

I partially don't follow that statement. Re. the engine? Yeah nothing more to say about, except: It took a team of royal electric and mechanical engineers over 8 hours to apply the modifications to rund that tank on something different than diesel. There is a tiny little detail missing, why the Chieftain MBT and also the Challenger are not sold very well. You can hardly modify those tanks for your own needs. You either love it or you hate it. It is black and white. Look a the Centurion. This in my mind it is one of the best tanks ever made. There are 13 versions of the centurion. It has provend to be a very good tool in combat. It ist still in service! And last but not least it is so well belanced that it became a bestseller. I would consider it the Leopard of the UK. Isreal alone had 5 Versions which proved to be a very capable in all combats. My conclusion for the downfall of the Chieftain: 1.) Engine 2.) Suspension: It was made for 45 tons only. After some modifications on the engine that tank had 50 tons. So another change to be made.... 3.) Difficult to apply modifications. 4.) To big gun! Why on earth 120 mm in that time? The British 105-mm-L7A3 was perfect for that time. (my opinion). Last but not least 5.) Two part amunition. The Uk is the only country using this kind of ammo. Why? (Ok I know the reasons and I appreciate them. But in some cases it is better to row with the stream than against it. Fortunately UK is going to decomission the 2 part ammo and will use a smooth bore gun instead like all other NATO partners) The Chiefain is the British Tiger 1 with very similar problems. The Challenger 1 which basically is a modified Chieftain has become a very good tank with an engine that works.

I first saw the Chieftain as a Tamiya kit in 1970. Wow, so dead dead sexy that you just knew it was a class item. That and my first tamiya kit, after airfix and lindberg and revell and monogram, here suddenly was unbelievably crisp and elegant mouldings along with beautiful transfers/decals. But bring back the chieftain and scrap our stupid abrams gas guzzlers.

Hi , I've meet you a couple of times at Tankfest (not this year (2019) though) and we have talked together (well it's usually me doing the talking). I knew you were at Berkeley but never knew your name until now.

I used to have a Dinky Toy Chieftain on a tank transporter, one of my favourite toys.

Nice, I saw one ayt drivetanks.com. I was impressed but the crew was extremely disappointed in engine performance. They use it to crush cars.

OP engine for the best lubrication has to be sit flat in compartment.

Thanks for posting this.

Хороший английский у мужика, на удивление всё понятно было, что он трындел🙂

Very nice Sofilein, I hope you had a good enough to great Xmas so far? ...is there any more of the earlier video at Shrivenham? as it ended part way through a very insightful discussion?

I heard one of the reasons for the multi fuel engine was to able to use heating oil. Theory was that East German apartments were supplied by communal bulk heating oil tanks and the tanks could refuel from them if we crossed the border. Not sure how true this was.

The Chieftain represents a classic problem that affects all services in every military around the world. That would be the desire of planners to demand technology that doesn't exist as part of a procurement. Sometimes it works, but mainly it consumes vast amounts of time and money without results. The Chieftain is a perfect example of the problem.

6:50 Happy World of Tanks Music lol 😆

How's your tank Mate. It's a screamer. Oh ya.

Amazing when you think we also make the best Engine RollsRoyce ( Mr Rolls was the company salesman and Mr Royce was the actual engineer).

I felt like i was listening to a football commentary.. lol

Electrics by Lucas? lol Cheers!

It was not just the engine but the semi electric gear box and the amount of air that got into the steering system, all bad news for the driver.

Export Chiffy's were powered by the CV12 RR engine. Can I have a job at the Tank Museum please?

Great video. Very good history lessons and information. It's interesting to see how we keep being "doomed" to repeat the same mistakes over and over in tank design. Turbines, lol, Abrams.

I wonder if the l60 would have worked better if made by people that knew what they were doing?

Interesting but the background noise is terrible.

Very nice!

7AB. Germany 1981 a Monster 😎

Watched a couple of videos of Chieftains operating. the engines in those videos really seemed to be running hard. Almost sounded as though they were in pain.

Seriously miss seeing ACTUAL Sofilein in the videos... you should do the narration instead!

A horizontally opposed engine is not inherently unreliable, if the engine itself and not, say, the fuel system was unreliable then it's design/manufacture was the problem.

Hi Bruce (the Speaker in the video) - Why don't you show what you are talking about? ? Are your shoes glued onto the ground /tank ?? It's the same in another vid with pretty Sofilein (from Sweden?) Just good bla bla in front of a static tank. You could do much better or use a poster to Talk in front of 😨

In the 1970s the chieftain would probably be one of the best defensive tanks in the world, only coming into problems if it would come up against T64As or T72s.

Hmmm !!! Hmmm !!! very good !!! but I was waiting/dying to view this great MBT from different angles during this 11 mins of YT.

Read a book about the cold war a while back. The soviets were scared of fighting the chieftain more than any other NATO tanks due to it's gun/armor.

I wonder if the Israelis would have swapped out the engine if the Brits had exported to them?????

Chieftain tank parked up the road from my home and a runner.

Thicc Turret!

Chrysler made the A-831 turbine and used it in test cars from '63-'64 and kept testing it for a few years after. Complicated starting and lacking good acceleration and fuel economy killed it.

I'm ex REME luckily I served as LAD. All of my service was to Infantry Batt's but everyone knew about the Crap Power Pack But I had worked at PERKINS ENGINES That had developed the power pack And knew the guys on the workshop floor were doing there best It was still Then and now one of the UK's BEST Tanks Since the Mk1

👍

please excuse the question but as someone who hasn't served what the heck is a schmulie?

The Leopard Tanks still have „Vielstoffmotoren“ which translates to Multifuel engines. Why do you say, especially gas turbines have been a promissing way to achive this NATO prerequisite?

Its a 2 stroke engine, which is why it screams....

The chieftain engine was rubbish until it was fitted with the 15A engine as this was uprated. It also helped using white (civvy) diesel and not the red.The original engines cylinders were in sections and the gland seals blew and the cylinders broke up. The 15a engine cylinders were assembled and the liner was chrome finished. As for multi-fuel; the Fuel Injection Pump had to be removed and rephrased and calibrated, could take 2 days. it was not a case of using different fuels from any jerry can. I worked on chieftain in the 70s and removed many a see-through engine ( blown up). By the time chieftain was right along can the Khalid, a stretched chieftain, that was destined for Iran, then challenger. No problem with the steering if brakes bled right.

its the engen and the accret yet slow fier control

The L60 screams because it's a 2 stroke design.

Doesn't the T-64 have it beaten on both lethality and survivability (at least in armour terms) for the era?

...I guess I didn't know.

Obviously the L60 Bus Engine. I worked on the thing.

"Early 60's"... In service: 1966-present. To me, '66 is the mid-60's.

The engine issue, at least from today's perspective, typifies common issues with UK defence procurement. The concept of multi-fuel was a good idea (and a Nato requirement), but did anyone else seriously try to do it ? The logical thing to do would have been to retrofit with diesel engines, but there was neither the money or political requirement to do anything. It's rather like Challenger 2 today. Rather than upgrading frequently (as both Leopard and Abrams have done) we choose not to do anything much, until it becomes imperative and we will probably end up replacing the turret (and gun) for a Leopard derived design for less than half the C2 fleet and probably big the ammo load/layout as we move from rifled to smoothbore (as seems likely today).

The Chieftain is quite reliable but a bit tall so he is not always a good fit to the crew compartment ;)

Armor, engine, those were the main issues.

Hahaha this chieftain tank although being a great tank also demonstrates a floor in our British mentality in so far as all NATO countries were told to develope a multifuel engine mbt.... But it was only us Brits who did this...... Nobody else did.... Leopard 1 diesel... American tanks are diesel... Just us British... A known crap engine prevented the chieftain following in the centurions footsteps as a truly Great tank..

is that WOT tankfest of what ?

Something that I find somewhat hilarious 🤣is that the Russians copied the Chieftain's engine for use in their T-64. I imagine it had similar issues as well....

Good stuff but invest in a clip on microphone so when the camera traverses your levels are consistent. I hadn’t realised that the engine was a boxer configuration on the Chieftan.

Couldn't find a time to film without all the background distraction?

Isn't this tank in WoT?

By 1966 the Soviets were already deploying the T-64 with its 125 mm smoothbore gun, which was better than the rifled 120 mm the Chieftain sported

600HP is less than the Tiger / Panther- what were they thinking? ( well not much!) ok, they got it right by using Maybach- same as Tiger/ Panther from 20 yrs ago hmmm British engineering- what is there to love?

Удивительно , спасибо !

Didnt the T-64 can take it out from 2700m and the chieftian had to get within 2400m?

If you want a good sweeper and duster I will donate a month of my time solely focused on the cleanliness and air quality of this there sweet mega garage. I'll need a free flight and I'll take care of my upkeep.. I'll not use any device but a broom and a shovel and my own budget to provide good air quality. Love

Between the Centurian and Chieftain was the unsuccessful Conqueror.

While I agree the Chieftain was probably the best western tank of that era, with the fall of the iron curtain we now know that the vastly superior T-64 was already coming off production lines by the mid to late 60's.

A standing joke among the German populace; was; By the time you lot get your Chiéftains on the road, they'll be paying with Rubels in Paris!

Best firepower? Maybe. Best survivability? That should be the T-64

Engine. Leyland were a terrible company...Everything they touched went to shit.

I wonder if he could've made this video without that racket in the background !

nothing. Even used in the first gulf war with no loss.

Unreliable engine... that's what you get when the Soviets have people in your design departments. I found the background noise to be very distracting thus ruining an otherwise an excellent video.