Chris Barrie | Top 5 Tanks | The Tank Museum

hello I'm Chris bury sometime actor and presenter and welcome to my top five tanks now down the decades there have been so many fantastic tanks that whittling it down to just five has been incredibly difficult I considered a whole range of machines for example the mark 5 the first tank which one man could drive by himself and also the first tank to have a dedicated tank engine designed by Harry Ricardo then what about possibly the best German tank of world war ii the panther with its virtually impenetrable frontal armour or the original thinking of the swedish s tank loaded with intriguing features eventually though I did get it down to just five when I was about ten years old I saw a feature film called Kelly's heroes a sort of world war 2 comedy featuring 1960s hippies and one of the stars of the film was donald sutherland who played a laid-back hippie tank commander called oddball who came out with lines like um don't hit me with those negative waves so early in the morning quite strange looking back now but to a bunch of 10 year olds in 1970 extremely watchable and the tank that oddball commanded was none other than the m4 Sherman and you know in the bigger picture the Sherman was a very important tank because without it the Allies wouldn't have won the war with its original 75 millimeter gun it would often take up to five Sherman's to overcome a single Panther or tiger so it's a good job but Sherman's were plentiful ease of production was in fact one of the many virtues of this tank and it went on to become one of the most prolific tanks ever made later in the war it was upgunned with this british 17 pounder weapon which at least gave it a fighting chance against the Tigers and the Panthers the Sherman was one of the most reliable and versatile tanks of all time ease of maintenance and component replacement made a very user friendly for the crews and like many of the greatest tanks it provided the perfect platform for a variety of other roles a Sherman can give you a very nice edge which is why it's at number five in my top five simply standing next to the museum's Tiger one I could really sense the chilling potency of this Leviathan of the tank world everything is is massive heavy and and well made and for the Allied crews in there Sherman's and Churchill's seeing one of these on the horizon well it must have put the fear of God into them there are probably better all-rounders in the tank world but for sheer battlefield presence the German Tiger one is hard to beat this is 56 tons of thick 110 millimeter armor a magnificent 694 horsepower Maybach petrol engine all crowned by this awesome 88 millimeter weapon which the Allies often struggle to deal with because in the right position and in the right hands even a single Tiger one could be practically invincible as the British 7th Armored Division found out in June 1944 Lloyd Nutt VIP man of the 501st SS heavy tank battalion picked off the lead vehicle and the tail vehicle and then helped himself to the other 25 in the middle then joined by his colleagues he demolished an entire squadron of Cromwell's tiger Warren was a formidable weapon which often caused the Allies to stop and reevaluate its at number four in my top five at around 8 tons the Alvis scorpion is the only light tank in my top 5 and my own experience with this vehicle has certainly contributed to its inclusion as a teenager I vividly recall my father ex Royal Army Ordnance Corps sitting in the turret of one of these as it whizzed around the test track at central vehicle Depot ludgar shell at probably about top speed around about 50 miles an hour while I grappled with the controls of a 432 personnel carrier I've also spent some memorable filming days with a scorpion both on the turrets and in the driving seat both on-road and off-road and an exhilarating experience is exactly what it is however that aside this is one magnificent tank it was the first all aluminium armored tank with an excellent power-to-weight ratio it had a low track to ground pressure which enabled it to traverse very soft ground now the Scorpion was built on a multi-purpose chassis and was the first of a family of vehicles including scimitar its sister tank turreted with a 30 millimeter aden cannon there was Spartan an armoured personnel carrier Samaritan an armored ambulance to name but a few some of which are still in service with the British Army today scorpions excellent performance was originally provided by the legendary twin overhead camshaft Jaguar j60 petrol engine the same motor more or less which powered the great post-war Jaguar sports and saloon cars which just so happened to be some of my favourite cars so all in all the Scorpion is my kind of tank which is why it's mixing it with the heavyweights at number three pop Pickers a lot of experts say the t-34 was probably the greatest tank ever built wide track Christie suspension superb sloping armor a lightweight diesel engine of 38 litres if you please and originally a decent 76 millimeter gun with the main elements of this machine in 1941 it was vastly superior to all of its German counterparts in range protection and cross-country performance I've spent an afternoon filming with the museum's t-34 and I vividly recall it emerging from the gloom of the shed looking sinister sounding like a locomotive it's rumbling 38 litre diesel engine propelling it forward in a haze of blue smoke giving off an aura of total mean aggression a real animal and frankly something of a brute to drive but then I would have been disappointed had it not been echoing the virtues of the aforementioned Sherman the t-34 was robust and easy to maintain and it predated the American tank comparing the two for me the t-34 has the edge it's just that little bit more menacing that a little bit more butch if you like and in 1943 keeping ahead of the game the t-34 was upgunned with this 85 millimeter weapon which really did turn it into a devastating machine which dominated the Eastern Front for the rest of the war not only did it influence the design of the excellent German panther but it also provided a design model for future Russian tanks right through the 20th century I think a very worthy number two my number-one tank is a great tank by any standards and proved once and for all that Britain could produce a tank to match the very best in the world although prototypes were made before the end of the Second World War it wasn't until 1949 that the Magnificent Centurion mark 1 entered service it sold all over the world and saw action right across the globe for decades and decades and decades key to the Centurions remarkable longevity was that it lent itself to being up armored and upgunned gaining in 1959 it's magnificent 105 millimeter weapon replacing this 20 pounder for me the Centurion is just it's just perfect it's just right and of course it comes out of a time between the 1940s and 60s when Britain produced some magnificent machines right across the board the Centurion certainly sits at the top table a real high point in British engineering excellence and I remember my father and his colleagues in the early 70s just when the Centurion was being retired and replaced by the chieftain they expressed a certain amount of disappointment particularly in view of the teething troubles they were having with Centurions successor the sound basic design of the Centurion enabled it to provide a platform for specialized vehicles such as the Centurion aviary armored vehicle Royal Engineers and as a bridge layer it served the British Army right into the 21st century now this tank was powered by the 27 litre rolls-royce meteor petrol engine which is essentially a surface equivalent of the famous Merlin aircraft engine which powers the Spitfire and four of them can be found on a Lancaster bomber although the rolls-royce meteor petrol didn't give century and the greatest range or speed it sounds just as good if not better than a Spitfire the legendary Centurion simply has to be my number one tank so those were my top five tanks please subscribe to the museum's YouTube channel and support the Museum on patreon you

Channel: The Tank Museum

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Keywords: chris barrie, red dwarf, brittas empire, the tank museum, top 5, tanks, chris barrie top 5 tanks, bovington tank museum, top 5 tanks, tank museum top 5, bovington tank museum top 5, tank museum chris barrie, centurion, scorpion, sherman, tiger 131, t-34, chris barrie tanks, chris barrie dingo, best tanks

Id: ix2kYHmdCJ8

Length: 10min 20sec (620 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 08 2017