Tank Chats #167 | French Panhard EBR | The Tank Museum

this tank Jack's going to be about these two vehicles behind me the French panhard EBR armored car a vehicle that started life before World War II but doesn't actually go into production until the 1950s please remember to like subscribe or click the little notification Bell if you don't want to miss out on these videos and I'd just like to say thank you to all our patrons for making this possible please join them if you can now the EBR is part of that French Cavalry story and if we go back we've already looked at with the Samoa video on how the French were going to reinvigorate their Cavalry arm gambling the French General when he comes to Paris Head of the French army at the beginning of the 1930s is determined to get the Cavalry that suffered like so many cavalces in World War One get them back at the Forefront of the military movements and he wants them to be the arm of decision again on the battlefield and for the French it's about the mission not the mount in other words let's do that with motorized vehicles now we've already talked about the idea of how gambling comes along and he sets out he wants a program of three different main types of vehicles for the French Cavalry he wants the AMR a type of short-range armored car that can do immediate reconnaissance on the battlefield he wants the AMD another type of reconnaissance vehicle but one that can travel much longer distances over roads and get further afield and he also wants a fighting tank something they call the AMC which as we've seen becomes a Samoa French tank and that one is the one that they're going to be doing the damage with now this program brings forward a host of different offerings to meet the different criteria from French companies and one of those companies that comes forward is panhard now panhard has been in the military vehicle game as early as 1905 Captain Gentry of the French army he's very keen in that early before the first world war in that period where everyone's experimenting with the new motor vehicles with airplanes Etc and he's Keen to see what you might be able to do with a new motor vehicle and he fits a panhard with a couple of machine guns and some of these experiments go on up to the first world war during the first world war panhard actually makes engines for the same Shimon tank but after the first world war it starts getting back into building military vehicles again for the French military and one of the areas it's particularly keen on is going for the AMD competition 1933 gamlan looks at that the the range of vehicles that's going to be available and in 1934 the panhard version which is originally called type 178 is actually accepted for service by the French military and that goes into Service as the AMD model 1935 the panhard armored car now that particular vehicle the type 178 that vehicle again is quite novel engine at the back four-wheel drive it's got a powerful turret on it which actually takes a gun at the time which was considered quite quite quite radical you know to put more Firepower and this is something we're going to see in that French armored car development the desire for their armored car their wheeled armored cars to have Firepower that almost certainly overmatches what's coming the other way in terms of enemy reconnaissance units but could perhaps take on some armor for some of the roles they're going to have to play now these uh AMD vehicles that go into service the model 1935 Vehicles they are pushed by the French military to get as many as possible it works out by about May of 1940 about 360 are in service with the French army by that time um of course with the May of 1940s the disasters for the French army then about 190 of those AMD Vehicles end up being reused by the Germans because they're very successful Vehicles they're reused throughout the rest of the war sometimes in secondary units sometimes by SS units Etc but it's a successful armored car now that late 1930s with panhard looking at offerings for these various models that the French military are going to be wanting one of the things panhard looks at sideways is samuer also comes up with a armored car offering and that particular vehicle has got some very novel features and again if you look generally not just in France but France Germany Britain even in America they're looking at wheeled armor in that late 1930s and there's lots of Novel Avenues are being explored think in Germany with the SDK fz231 six wheelers eight wheelers could we have wheel tanks so lots of experimentations going on and panhard seeing what samura have done some more come up with a vehicle that has lowered you can lower a central set of wheels to help that vehicle go over rougher ground but they can be raised so the vehicle has that advantage of Wheels speed on the road when they're not necessary and this and other opportunities going in the later 1930s spur panhard to start a program at the end of the 1930s which is going to lead to a vehicle that they call their type 201 1937 they're starting to put together a design and in 1940 they've just produced the first prototype vehicle now the 201 it's quite radical and it's such an obvious when you see images of it such an obvious precursor of the EBR it ends up with a engine that they put beneath the turret and it's transversely fitted it's a six cylinder 85 horsepower engine and it's very flat it's quite low and that means that you can therefore keep the vehicle low they're also looking at driver stations at either end and they're looking at in the middle instead of just a pair but four wheels what they are calling agricultural tractor wheels are lowerable so that you can actually have those driven by the engine over rougher ground so it's got a cross-country capability as well as that online Road capability this vehicle comes in around about nine tons it's got that very good range as well because petrol engine about 3.3 meters long and they reckon they could get it up to about 80 kilometers an hour you know pretty fast for this scale nine ton vehicle and they've got those front and rear drivers now other countries have been experimenting with this if you've got a reconnaissance vehicle the idea that you might be traveling down the road you come to the roadblock you come to the mines you come to the enemy position the fact that that driver doesn't want to be doing a three-point turn say somebody who needs to drive that vehicle quickly back the other way so a number of armored cars in the 30s are experimenting with either a steering wheel on the back wall of the fighting compartment or with this vehicle now they're looking at a second driver's position so this vehicle can drive backwards as fast as it can forwards now the problem we've got there the turret by the way was about a 20 millimeter cannon again reasonably powerful at the time that was a an anti-tank gun they got there it was about 73 calibers long and it would fire around at about 900 meters a second so it got actual good penetration the gun they were going to put on the top and it had a slightly odd system of how it was turning on ball bearings the way that the turret top was there and that was actually designed by panhard at the time there was an expectation with this type 201 later on a bigger gun is almost certainly going to be wanted to be fitted to that vehicle the war minister in France uh Raul Daughtry he's pushing this vehicle he tells gamlan as soon as trials are over you're going to be getting about 600 of these he's heavily involved in this program in the later 1930s whereas again if you look at the French situation they're re-arming they're trying to do it as quickly as possible they're trying to fit these different categories but they have this large plethora of vehicles that are being built or are wanted by the French military but again we're back to May 1940 we have that problem that the French military is defeated relatively quickly what happens to this type 201 so what there's a number of different stories that with this prototype some say it actually ended up getting on putting on a ship the Masala that actually goes across the Mediterranean was it sunk did it end up getting to French North Africa um there's stories of it being in a quarry near uh Rabat um there's another story that says this prototype was scrapped in 1952 but basically the French are trying to hide this project the type 201 from the advancing Germans and the drawings it is said a lot of that work that was done on this vehicle by panhard is lost it's not made available in any way whatsoever and but the idea is there within the French designers and the French military which will see what then happens is in 1944 this idea is revived as head of the free French forces de Gaul in 1944 is very keen that France starts its own weapons manufacturer and armaments Industry again as soon as possible and actually behind the scenes there's been work going going on first of all in Vichy France and then undercover work on developing armored vehicles and other types of Weaponry de Gaulle is quite Keen that the M8 Greyhound armored car they need to replace that and back to this idea the French free forces are using the M8 from the Americans but they don't like its Firepower they want more Firepower on their armored vehicles and that leads a requests to go out to French companies as early as late 1944 and 1945 what comes back is companies like panhard are making an offer and panhard's offer for this new type of armored vehicle is going to be based on their earlier type 201 now what they're doing with this is they start a design process that by July 1948 they actually have two prototypes ready they changed the name this now becomes type 212 and and even though the two vehicles look very similar you can see some design pedigree there there's a lot of changes it's a bigger vehicle it's about a meter longer it's a lot heavier the earlier vehicle under 10 tons this one's now we're going 13 14 tons this vehicle is different therefore but shows some of that design pedigree especially when you look at it because again this is an eight-wheeler all eight wheels are powered when you drop the two Central wheels on each side they again have those agricultural Wheels as they were called and they will take that vehicle across country much better um now delegarde and Gervais were to the French Engineers that are working on this vehicle and they actually get the uh panhard and create a car just after the wall the diner which becomes a sort of French classic and they actually take the engine from that and work on that engine to give this vehicle more power because you've got more weight now than it was before the war but to stick to that idea of creating a very flat engine that will go on the floor of the vehicle underneath the turret and therefore keep the profile of this vehicle as low as possible and also by doing that center of gravity nice and low as well so again it's got great stability over rough terrain now that engine comes out as a 12-cylinder horizontally opposed it's air cooled it's about 200 horsepower and the amazing thing is they were able to get about 71 miles an hour or about 100 kilometers speed out of a vehicle with that engine fitted so you're looking invented a very fast vehicle using that engine that the de la guard and Gervais have actually developed now they try and make that vehicle to have a range it they know it's going to be used not just in the short term reconnaissance but the longer term reconnaissance as well so they're looking at a range about 700 kilometers about 430 miles they look at how are they going to cool this engine it's going to be air cooled so around the turret they design holes that suck air in two fans in there that take those over the cylinders and it's blasted it the fan pushes that air out at the rear end and again that's one of the other problems with these vehicles whenever you're looking at them working out what the front and the back because the design is such you can only really tell when you look at things like the cluster light clusters because that idea of the driver's positions are very similar at both ends of those vehicles in terms of actually the transmission they actually put two gearboxes again transversely mounted and it's what they call a four disc clutch Arrangement basically six of the gear are being used on the first clutch area you then use a second gearbox if you're going to go across country Etc so you actually only if you're all told there's about 16 speed ratios you can actually use by using those two different gearboxes that the vehicle's actually fitted with and that supplies power to track the joints that are on each on bevel joints there on each of the of the eight wheel stations so even those middle ones when they drop they are actually being powered by the engine as well to give traction across country you're raising them up again you don't use them when you're using the main roads or harder tracks Etc which again allows you that incredible speed that this vehicle could get um the vehicle has got um pneumatic tires um they on the front and the other side there those wheels are lowered by a hydro pneumatic system and that was one of the problems of this vehicle when they're trying to actually put it into service one of the real issues they had was the breakages of some of those hydraulic lines and there's stories of depending on where you were sitting in the vehicle it was either absolutely hilarious because your mate got covered in hydraulic fluid otherwise or if it was you that was in that position and again that problem about trying to iron these things out if anything goes wrong with the engine one of the downsides was going to be that you're almost certainly going to have to do a turret lift to get if it's a major issue going on with the engine because that's where the engine is underneath the turret and where the crew are there so this was a very mobile vehicle with that transmission with that engine it could actually climb about a 60 degree slope it could cross a two meter wide trench it could afford a stream about 1.2 meters deep and it was doing that with drive to all of those Wheels only the front two would actually steer the vehicle until you're actually engaging a sharper turn and then also the rear two wheels would also then start turning as well the four outer wheels are the ones that are actually break so actually slowing the vehicle down now the tires have a a sort of bulletproof system that was put on Veil Pickard tires they're actually with small tubes inside that are full of nitrogen and the idea was if they were penetrated you couldn't lose all the pressure within the tire and overall that meant that the ground pressure as well of this vehicle was relatively light it was about 0.7 kilograms per square centimeter and you're looking at that is slightly later that lighter than a main battle tank all comparable and that's really good for a vehicle that crept up to about 15 Tons in its later models there armor protection it's well sloped armor if you look at the vehicle it's got this very angular shape which again is increasing the thickness of the armor thickest at about 40 millimeters thinnest armor on the top surfaces Etc about 10 millimeters and they fitted into that space a four-man crew so a driver not just at the front but always permanently in that rear position true crew members in the turret a commander and a Gunner and that was where really the part of the radical nature not just this drive but the turret system is where again we're looking at this vehicle because EBR Cuts away for armored vehicles in a New Direction by using this very distinctive oscillating turret now the five leels company has come up with a design for this new type of tire it where basically when we're talking about an oscillating turret instead of having the gun mounted on a mantlet that goes up and down at the front of the whole turret the whole top of the turret is secured to the gun so that when the whole turret roof goes up and down the gum goes up and down and again that has got trunnions where it's mounted to the lower half which spins as usual commander and Gunner have seats that are attached in essence to the top half of that turret so that they're always in line with it and this leads to the advantage that later on they can actually have an auto loader system on this vehicle as well but let's look at the first type of turret first so they're looking there at fitting What's called the 75 millimeter sa-49 gun which hack and fire the same ammunition as the Sherman the Chaffee so it's that same 75 millimeter ammunition that's already in service with French tanks and that's put on something called the FL 11 type of turret but the FL 11 turret is produced from about 1951 836 of this model are actually produced there from about 51 to 54 and that gun is later upgraded which where it gets a bit confused using on that same type of oscillating turret from about 64 to 1968 they upgrade it to a 90 millimeter they basically bore out that gun and it becomes the cn90 which is a low pressure gun and that's because new ammunition Natures have become available you can have a fin stabilized Hollow charge and this is a Smooth Bore so it's actually firing rounds that are very devastating to armor if they hit in the right place but they're not being fired with that enormous amount of kinetic energy and that French search for even greater Firepower to put on there reconnaissance vehicles in 1954 they call it the ebr-54 model they take the earlier turret the fl-10 turret in this case they call it the fa oil 10 a2c turret and they place that that's a turret originally designed in its first form for the AMX 13 tank and they put put that on the EBR now that's the turret with the gun in it's still a long 75 millimeter gun but this is now the gun that was based on as I'm always being corrected it's not actually a copy of the Panther gun it's based on the state same ballistics as the gun that was designed for the Panther work on this gun it actually started in France during the War years and the French of course as we know they take on a panther Battalion uh into service just after the war they are looking at that Panther gun as an ideal model as an anti-tank gun so their version that they build a unique design in many ways but it has the same ballistic capabilities as a gun that was on the panther is this sa50 gun that is in the turret for the AMX 13 and that turret with some minor adjustments is then put on in the 1954 model of the EBR and that again in terms of uh it's got 36 rounds it can carry two six round and carousels in the back of the turret and an auto loader system because again it can do that because an auto loader works very well when the gun is in line with the turret roof Etc which is that gives that advantage of the oscillating turret so lining everything up is much easier to do now that vehicle it adds more weight therefore they have to strengthen the suspension with this newer turret that's put on there and about 279 of those ones are actually either rebuilt other earlier model chassis or new chassis as well from about 1954 to 56. later on some of those versions when they're phased out they actually use some of them for command posts they actually deactivate the gun take some of the ammunition storage out inside and put some map tables in and they actually stay on for much longer time there problems with the gallery it's good for firing forward it's good for firing aft if you're firing to the side you can find the vehicle almost dangerously rocking because of the power of the guns it's firing whether it's a 90 millimeter or that High Velocity 75 millimeter the main Armament would always be supplemented by a 7.5 millimeter Mac 31 machine gun that was in a coaxial your position but also on this vehicle another novel feature there was actually two machine gun positions one at the front at the driver's feet and one at the rear driver's feet as well and that machine gun not always fitted not very often fitted in fact but that again with a 7.5 millimeter machine gun that could actually be fired by the driver as they're advancing down the road there's also issues about fumes coming into the cab it's the gun the original vehicle accepted service in 51s but there's actually a series of improvements on that the EBR as it's going into service there it has initial issues with its starter motor some of the electrics cause trouble I've already mentioned some of the Hydraulics for lowering those wheels and bringing them up again so it's a it's a complex vehicle and there's worries about it as well because of issues such as having to lift the turret to do major work on the engine would it be suitable for some of the rest of the French forces not just the Cavalry so as part of that actually 1958 January of 58 6ebr armored cars and a range of other vehicles go on a major trip across the Sahara about 4 000 miles being tested by the French Roman legion and one of the things that comes out of this which is again the human element actually you get a better result if you've got a well-trained and experienced and sympathetic driver for the vehicle it sounds obvious but that's one of the things the French picked up on that you'll get more out of this vehicle it's got issues straight away because it has to serve with French forces and the French again were in this post-colonial or this colonial Retreat from colonies era and one of the major situations that's developed is Algeria and this is where this vehicle it it's used not always that successfully but it sees a fair amount of action but it Spurs the French into other directions and we'll see some of their other armored vehicles that come out because of the fighting in Algeria but there you are having situations where the ebrs are driving up to a thousand miles on some operations and they're also as well because of their Road speed they're out distancing other vehicles like Jeeps which is when you think about it for a vehicle that's coming on 15 Tons and that's very impressive this vehicle you know the speed it can actually get to they test other weapon systems there is a a 30 millimeter hispania Souza the anti-aircraft turret that's tried on it the French don't particularly go for that one they also panhard look at it for a basis and they change the structure on the top and make a version which they call the EBR ett which is basically a armored personnel carry that could take about 14 men the French military again don't go for that one of the buyers of the EBR Portugal they do buy some of those armored personnel carrier versions as well this vehicle so it sees service not just with the French military I've mentioned Portugal Portugal's fighting some of its uh its end of its uh colonies they're trying to hang on to them for a lot longer than some of the other nations do so it sees fighting in Africa with Portuguese forces it also goes out to the Far East so it sees some service out in uh um in the Philippines and Malaya um it's being looked at as well could they replace with even more powerful Armament later on but ultimately it gets replaced by the French AMX 10rc vehicle another big wheel vehicle but that one's got 105 millimeter gun on which again shows this desire for the French military to have very powerful weapon systems on their armored cars look at other nations at this time most of them don't have guns of the power of the 75 millimeter the long barreled High Velocity gun or later that 90 millimeter sort of weapon systems going on armored cars around this sort of time so a successful vehicle novel very mobile you'll see lots of photographs where the French is showing off this vehicle showing this amazing cross-country ability it has its trench Crossing abilities Etc um it did have a series of teething troubles it comes out a service with a French military really at the beginning of the 1980s it's starting to be replaced but again it's a different way of looking at how you're going to find and use a reconnaissance vehicle using novel ideas and some of those ideas date way back to just before the second world war but it doesn't actually go into service till the early 1950s so quite a radical design and we're lucky enough here at the tank Museum to have an example so we've got that fl-10 turret behind me there showing that uh bigger turret with the autoloader at the back and here's one of the FL uh 11 turrets which is facing actually I have to say the wrong way at the moment it's actually facing backwards both vehicles at the moment should be heading in that direction this gun is facing rearwards uh again this is one of those ones that's been bought out to the 90 millimeter gun

Channel: The Tank Museum

Views: 297,139

Keywords: Bovington, Dorset, Tanks, Tankfest, tanks, tiger, chieftain, tank museum, second world war, world war two, top five tanks, tank chats, david fletcher, british army, tiger 131, royal armoured corps, tank regiment, RAC, tank museum bovington, tanklife, bovingtontank museum, military history, ww2, armoured car, tankchats, army, veteran, war history, ww2 history, wwii museum, ww2 tanks, ww2 weapons, french armoured cars, cold war

Id: Np3rXre8KAY

Length: 27min 32sec (1652 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 28 2022