A Really Fast Tank

with the cold war arms race well into its second decade soviet military technology achieved a number of unparalleled successes their effective battle tanks self-propelled guns artillery aircraft and continually evolving air defense systems had forged a path to near technological parity with or perhaps even superiority over the us furthermore the soviet union had imminent plans to introduce a new upgraded successor to their feared t-62 and t-5554 battle tanks plans posed a threat to the american and west german militaries positioned on the other side of the iron curtain both countries needed a revolutionary tank design to compete with the latest soviet anti-tank technology so they joined forces to build the mbt-70 main battle tank this footage shows a speed test of the tank a military vehicle considered ahead of its time it could reach incredibly fast cross-country speeds both forward and backward despite its immense weight however the promising tank never went further than a prototype the west germans and the americans were in disagreement over the design from the beginning which eventually led to both countries pulling out from the project west meets west in the early 1960s the us and west germany armies had built two new heavy main battle tanks the m60 and the leopard one however it appeared that the soviet's vastly improved version of their t62 main battle tank would soon outmatch them the upgraded soviet tank would have enhanced armor a three-man crew and a novel autoloading main gun enemy armies wouldn't know until years later that these tanks were actually uncomfortable and cramped which reduced the cruise efficiency even more the main guns auto loader didn't usually work still fearing the development west germany and the u.s continued to upgrade their tanks and as the future soviet tank entered production it seemed inevitable that both countries would soon be outmatched in light of this new threat west germany and the us decided to join forces and develop a brand new main battle tank or mbt that they hope would become standard for both the western bundeswehr and the us army and marine corps this promising tank was designated the mbt-70 a very fast tank [Music] the mbt-70 was a design created from scratch where the best existing features of both countries technologies would meet the mbt-70 had a hydro-pneumatic suspension that enabled the tank to kneel forward or backward this improved the efficiency of the main guns aim at distant targets and a lower depression angle for fortified haul-down positions where the tank needed to fire from behind protection the hydro-pneumatic suspension also improved the tank's handling it would stay as low as 4 inches from the ground on ordinary roads and as high as 28 inches while going cross-country [Music] this mid-air photo was taken during one of the tank speed tests at aberdeen proving ground each design team chose different engines for their own tanks the americans selected a continental abcr air-cooled v12 diesel system with 1470 horsepower meanwhile the germans decided on an mty diesel engine with 1500 horsepower both tanks could travel at a top speed of 43 miles per hour making the mbt-70 prototype the fastest main battle tank in the world at the time it was also built with a coupler that allowed it to drive backward at full speed the turret was large enough to house a three-man crew a departure from standard tanks where the driver would sit in the lower front hull and apart from the gunnery crew [Music] the tank's armor was made up of two space layers the inner one was made of steel but also served as a spell liner and the outer one made of harder cold rolled steel it was designed to help defeat high explosive anti-tank warhead rounds one of the cold war's most dangerous anti-tank weapons the mbt-70 also had fireproof doors bulkheads and blowout sections in the ammunition storage area for minimizing crew injury in battle [Music] disagreements [Music] from the beginning of the joint project the two design teams butted heads and faced numerous disagreements the language barrier didn't help and the rivalry that grew during development affected teamwork most teams even argued about whether the tank would use the imperial or the metric system they ended up using both which only added to the project's costs [Music] instead of choosing only one gun for the tank each country decided on a different one the germans went with a simple auto loading 120 millimeter run metal gun in comparison the americans insisted on using the much more challenging to utilize xm150 auto loading stabilized laser rangefinder equipped 152 millimeter gun system the problem is that the american gun and launcher system never really worked and was riddled with performance issues both germans and americans did agree at least that the tank's mobility was excellent when the prototype started their testing phase in 1968. however the mbt-70 had yet another big problem since the driver would be inside a rotating turret the tank's designers came up with the idea of mounting him inside his own contra rotating coupler whichever direction the turret was facing the driver would always face forward but these soldiers were used to being in the front of the tank's hull in an unmovable position so they were suffering from motion sickness that greatly hindered their aim home sweet home in the end there were too many problems with joint cooperation from the two powerful countries too many leading edge technologies were incorporated into the design which meant the tank was very difficult to use and cost escalated by 1969 the mbt-70 cost five times what was proposed the price tag for only 14 tanks and their trials had risen to 303 million dollars the disagreements and the cost ultimately forced the west germans to leave the joint project the us congress also pulled out of funding the u.s project in 1970 each country took their prototypes home the west germans improved upon their design which later developed into the excellent and current leopard 2. [Music] with congress pulling out the americans requested additional funding for evaluations and improvements over the completed prototypes and with a lower budget change the project's name to xm803 the mbt-70 was the last time two countries attempted to jointly develop a [Music] tank [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Dark Footage

Views: 320,771

Rating: 4.9095631 out of 5

Keywords: tank, fast, footage, photo, photos, video, caught on camera, caught on tape, dark footage, tanks, army, us army, military, videos, caught on video, united states, germany, test footage, raw video, history channel

Id: Xl_qHIGD18I

Length: 6min 52sec (412 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 21 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/plasmathunder]

The cluster of channels that guy runs barely read the script before making a video, so many factual errors and the footage rarely has anything to do with what they're talking about.

They have interesting content that they wrote themselves though, not blatant word for word copying like Mark Felton has been caught doing for his channels.

[u/PanadaTM]

Are people just gonna link every fuckin video this guy makes?