Inside The Chieftain's Hatch: 75 mm Howitzer Motor Carriage M8 (M8HMC) Pt.2 - World of Tanks

and welcome back to college station i'm at the museum of the american gi and this is their 75 millimeter howitzer motor carriage m8 [Music] i am of course sitting up here at the ring mount for the caliber 50 this is the only machine gun mounted on the vehicle 400 rounds the caliber 50 will be carried including the hundred rounds which is mounted on the gun itself for emergencies there are also some caliber 30 carbines and one pumps and submachine gun while i'm out here i'll also just quickly observe on the side close to the camera the radio antenna mount and the external pull handle for the fire extinguisher but if you're inside the vehicle you'll pull the fire extinguisher from down by my feet to operate the engine compartment fire extinguisher pull pin and pull the handle down now initially the m8s came with a fire detection system but it was fairly soon removed from later production and those that initially had it equipped had it removed no explanation is given in the manual but presumably it did not work well you'll see that the vehicle is actually very well stowed as part of the restoration with all the various different components you find such as the seats which to make a little bit of room are very easily removed and even come with their own storage positions either in the turret or on the whole side ammunition there are 31 rounds stowed on the back bulkhead the bulkhead also contains the access panels to the rear of the engine and there are also air intakes so some of the air can be drawn in through the crew compartment and then into the engine area and it also draws air over the fuel system as well you can see the fuel line comes out to the front here and goes into a selector on the back wall so you can select either the left tank the right tank or both tanks as i said it is a single combined fuel system so once it goes through that selector the fuel pipes then split up into two one to each carburetor other than that your standard amount of stowage your binoculars uh oil spare caliber 50 ammunition i will say that the 50 cal ring is a little bit irritating as if somebody's just sitting down trying to avoid getting his head whacked the reach guard i can at least understand and you can see on the right to stowage for two of those m1 carbines i had mentioned coming down a little bit further you got underfloor stowage uh there's a jerry can underneath back here is spare parts and the escape hatch the escape hatch well once it drops down it's not that big you gotta still get rid of some of the boxes that are in the way i still think unless there is a very very good reason for you not to be getting at the top getting at the top is probably going to be the way you're getting out of here you will think this is the commander's position yes there is a gun commander but in actuality what we really have is a gunner a loader an assistant loader radio man and the driver [Music] beside the system there are two mounts for three possible sights the primary sight is the telescope panoramic m12a5 and this is your primary indirect fireside although it can be used for direct fire if necessary the whole system will go about five and a half miles maximum range the second choice is the direct vision telescope it is the m55a by three optic battle site is 600 yards it is graduated at 500 yard intervals from 1 000 to 3 000. your third choice should both of these be damaged and also the spare site which is carried a little bit down below is a simple open sight and all it is is the long tube that mounts where the m55 goes and it's got a little crosshair on the end the actual control equipment well first of course you have the elevation lock on top of the gun tube and then there's the traverse lock so rotate and lock out you now have both your controls around the right hand side so traverse is only manual and elevation also on your manual and because this is a small gun with no per roof depression is actually excellent which is why my cameraman is able to get such a wide shot instead of just having the vision completely blocked by the recoil guard of the howitzer to fire the gun there are two possible methods the preferred method is the electric firing system which attaches to a solenoid on the gun block and that is this big red easy to hit in a hurry button which i'm sure people have loads of fun just going slam and that's it for the controls nothing special it's just a self-propelled version of a toad artillery this now brings us to the gun itself the first couple of hundred howitzers had to have support points welded to the tube in order to fit the mount cradle now the mount itself basically takes a lot of the components off of the m34s mount for the m4 making production a little bit easier but after a couple of hundred of the initial howitzers are converted new production howitzers were created with the support points machined as an integral component of the tubes the system then is a your typical pack howitzer it has a horizontally sliding breech block operated by use of the handle here there is a manual cocking handle if a recog is necessary ordinarily the recoil operation will do the re-caulking for you the cocky handle also functions as the safety so you can see it's written unsafe and when you it back into position it is in the open and ready to fire position the fire if the electrical system doesn't work either the gunner or the cannoneer can simply pull back on this mechanical lever and release the hammer as so the last thing i'll point out up here is a compass has been mounted to the turret front which of course has to be calibrated because you're inside a big metal box and there are little calibrations you can either use a screw or a coin in addition to the 31 rounds on the bulkhead we saw earlier there were nine rounds stowed in the left sponson and these v6 in the ready rack up front authorized ammunition types included heat there were various he rounds smoke either white phosphorus or liquid fs and persistent gas now the heat was a fixed round you couldn't mess with that at all the he rounds the smoke and the gas they were semi-fixed type so in addition to fusing if you want to do any fusing changes you could also remove the projectile from the cartridge case entirely remove any extra propellant bags so you didn't need the extra muzzle velocity because of course artillery types like to have options for trajectory place the projectile back onto the casing and then shove the whole lot into the breech so for the assistant driver the main reason i am here is to show that he exists and that i fit in it there isn't much to the position he does have the full range of driver's controls available to him i.e steering braking levers and an accelerator pedal accessing the transmission is a little bit difficult with the ammunition ready rack in the way his seat does have the same three inches of travel forward and reverse as the driver seat does and that's it as you scroll around you're going to see the two periscopes this one has obviously been dismounted the visor's vision to the front handheld fire extinguisher as you come around we have the stowage for the backup telescope and then behind me you're going to see one of the radios now this particular radio is an scr610 it's also known as a jeep radio tuned to artillery frequencies the controls for which are at the front and there's only two channels other options include the scr 508.528510 and also i believe a 506 if you're a command vehicle and of course the tommy gun is located to my right as well so for the driver's seat final position in the vehicle visor closes down easily enough and of course there's no gap in it so since we haven't installed the periscope in here we're going to be driving with the visor open controls are similar to the m5 he's got the same steward type roof mounted control tillers which are a bit of a space saver considering how narrow the seat is on the other hand it doesn't mean you might get a little bit less leverage than you would otherwise unlike the assistant driver's position the driver's position comes with a plunger for a parking brake like so but i'll just move it out of the way for the sake of the video as you continue on to the right you're going to see a whole compass and then you come to the control differential and transfer case so the control differential of course will control your steering and your braking your transfer case is simply a range selector low range or drive and behind that you're going to have your selector for the two transmissions of course the one control for both transmissions neutral drive low and reverse behind is where the two power shafts start to connect to the transfer case now if you are going to be driving around with a dead engine you have to disconnect the power shaft at this end and if you're going to be reversing you got no choice the manual repeatedly tells you do not attempt to drive any of these engines dead in reverse so don't be reversing on one engine or towing the vehicle at all in reverse uh even if you're in neutral without disconnecting the shafts you will damage the transmission systems it is possible of course to start the engines uh individually if one starter is dead you can start with the other engine but unlike some vehicles where you run the one engine then you drop the second one to drive and you basically connect the two power shafts that way with this vehicle you're basically doing a kind of a push start so you get the vehicle going up the speed both transmissions in drive at about four miles an hour you turn the ignition to the other engine on and it should start if both your starters are gone it's possible to start the engine by toe starting with another tank and same mechanism as long as you're able to get the m8 up to about four miles an hour the dash is one of two types this is the earlier type which has the warning lights down below and the pull out selector for the lights the other type has a rotary selector for the lights and the warning lights are up top but otherwise you've got the same concept of two engines so you got two tacks two temperature gauges two oil pressure gauges with the one speedometer amperage and volts down below your pedals one of each accelerator that's it the little button on the left foot is not the high beam switch as you might think it is in fact for the siren all right so that's it next thing to do is to power it on by using the master power to my left rear and the 12 volt battery which is located behind it and let's have some fun [Music] now the manual is very specific that both engines are to be started simultaneously although i've run into a lot of collectors that will start the one and then the other so talking with the owner of this one they've concluded that what it is is that if you leave the engines off for any amount of time the fuel lines start to drain if you start both engines at the same time you get twice the suction power working through the one fuel system and you'll start more smoothly so that said first thing you do is turn on master power expansion over the left rear shoulder and our meter has already come to life ensure that you're in neutral drop the accelerator a quarter more or less a quarter of the way turn your ignitions both to on warning lights come on and then at the same time press the two starter buttons and that's it both engines smoothly come to life now when you get going the idea is to just put it into drive drive and the transmission will take care of the rest of it from there it goes from first to second the third to fourth to sixth if you have to downshift for whatever reason let's say you're accelerating at 30 miles an hour it will then downshift the fifth which is about the only time the fifth will ever come into this equation only if you're driving in unusual conditions would you change the range of the transfer case to low now because we are facing the wrong way right now we have to reverse we're going to put the transmission into reversed and the manual is quite specific that to do so you put it into low pause for a moment and then slam the lever all the way back so as the owner says you are not timid with this transmission oh also helps to make sure the brakes are wrong so that was incredibly easy now you may have noticed i was chopping the turns instead of keeping a constant pressure it's apply release apply release and that stops the track from walking off but otherwise this thing is easy and fun i highly recommend it to anybody get your own m8 overall 1778 m8s were built until january 1944. initially they were issued as assault guns in medium tank units but it does seem a little bit pointless given that they have a 75 millimeter gun the sherman's had a 75 millimeter gun although admittedly the indirect fire capability was useful once the 105 millimeter sherman came on the scene to fill the assault gun roll the m8s found their real home in cavalry units where they were fast and nimble enough to keep up with the m5 light tanks and m8 armored cars although their 75 provided a greater punch than the 37s on those vehicles during world war ii the us and france were the main users but after the war they ended up seeing service in places like laos vietnam tunisia or taiwan ordnance did give it the name of general scott in november of 44 but by that point the vehicles had all been built and shipped off to the using troops so i don't think anybody really cared the turret would also be found later mounted onto the lvta-4 originally pretty much in that configuration but eventually was modified a little bit to suit the requirements of the amphibious role to include the use of a stabilizer and changing the caliber 50 mount this is also where the best place to talk about the one famous variant of the m8 particularly for world of tanks fans and that's the m8a1 quote unquote in actuality its official name was 75 millimeter gun m3 on 75 millimeter howitzer motor carriage m8 chassis which is a bit of a mouthful and very few people called it that so what happened was tank destroyer branch decided to call it the m8 gun motor carriage and somebody at aberdeen decided to call it the m8a1 and slapped it on the side that's what you see in the pictures but it was never an official designation the idea was to put a turreted tank destroyer again small light and fast with the sherman's 75 millimeter gun in actuality what ended up happening wasn't any more powerful obviously than the m10 that was in service and it certainly wasn't any more nimble than it even though it was better than the m3 half track against which it was also compared with the m10 doing a sterling job in the m18 just about to enter production it seemed completely pointless to put the m8 gun motor carriage into service and that project died a quick death at that point so that's it hope you found the tour interesting and informative again this is a project of world of tanks and this is actually a marketing ploy so if you feel like you want to show your support for these videos feel free to use the link below to register for the game and hey you'll show your support and b you might actually find you have a new pastime much to your wife's annoyance most likely take care i'll see you on the next one ah i scared the crap out of me

Channel: World of Tanks North America (Archived)

Views: 69,182

Keywords: World of Tanks, Tanks, World of tanks gameplay, Wargaming, World of tanks PC, Strategy Game, MMO, Free Multiplayer, Multiplayer Game, Military tanks, Tank Videos, 75 mm Howitzer Motor Carriage M8, M8HMC, Nicholas Moran wot, The Chieftain Wot, Nick The Chieftain, Inside the Chieftains Hatch, Chieftain Talks, Chieftain Teaches, Nick Drives tanks wot, world of tanks nick moran, wwii tanks wot

Id: z1k6UXIjIHs

Length: 18min 19sec (1099 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 20 2021