Tank Chats #92 | Challenger 2: Full Length |The Tank Museum

we are a charity here at the Tank Museum so if you can support us please do consider joining our patreon scheme or becoming a member of the Friends any donations will go directly towards the Tank Museum and its activities this tank chats going to be about the British Army's challenger 2 tank and we have the great advantage with challenger 2 it's an in-service vehicle we've already talked about the Challenger 1 tank in an earlier tank chat and I'd recommend have a look at that because that gives the background to why MBT 80 was canceled and some of the issues that go around that do affect what's going to become challenger 2 now looking at challenger 2 again as we've challenged one it can seem a fairly complex story so bear with me again there's a number of different streams of activities that we need to look at some of which were going on at the same time so they sort of overlap and everything so I'll try and take you through those but the key one to start with is what is the threat why our challenger 2 tanks being built now this again so let's go back we're looking at the Cold War we're looking at the NATO countries the Western Allies the threat of as they believe it at the time an invasion from the Soviet bloc the Warsaw Pact countries coming from the east now at the 1960 seventies eighties we've been tracking Soviet tank development all the time in NATO and one of the issues that despite the fact that the front line soldiers often think their kits best that's better than any enemies that's going to fight against them in the background the intelligence service of the military and certainly in Britain we had a worry that the Soviet vehicles coming into service and the Soviets are putting a new tank into service it works out on average about every 7 years some of these vehicles are catching up with or if not overtaking those vehicles that are in service in the West and we like to have a thinking the NATO countries that we always had a technological superiority there now this was vitally important for the British forces because what you're looking at is where the British two armored divisions were going to fight in what was then West Germany if the Soviets had attacked they estimated there would be about 2,000 Soviet tanks fighting against the British of the to produce divisions and if those British tanks survived what was bound to be a massive Soviet artillery barrage before the attack began it was estimated in some sectors the British tanks like the chieftain were gonna have to take on what might have been five to one or even ten to one odds against the Soviets and again in terms of the technology worryingly for britain when the t-64 tank went into service in 1976 what ends up happening is that they do an estimate that in 1978 they reckon that a chieftain could not have a t-64 tank at about 2500 meters it can pierce a frontal arm of that Soviet tank however they then worked out that the Soviet t60 for with its new 125 millimeter gun could penetrate the front armor of the chieftain tank at about 2,700 metres so that's what in the military terms they say over match in other words that tank has a certain superiority there in that particular area of firepower now as we all know we said it here before it's not just Top Trumps with tanks it's not just technological features it can be the training it can be the deployment it can be the tactics news and again in the West in NATO countries we like to comfort ourselves that we were going to be going into pre-prepared positions when you had killing zones where we thought we'd be taking on the Soviet attack etc etc so it's not just an equal balance or in just doing it in stats and figures but that nature of the Soviet threat was starting to worry or certainly worried the West and not only were we looking at the tanks that were in service in NATO countries they called it FS our future Soviet requirement or future Soviet tank FST they're looking at this idea what's coming next so it could be FS r1 if it's r2 these ones that are coming down the pipeline so when we're thinking about our own tanks not only would do we need to leave or firepower the Kincaid take on that tank and protection that can protect our own tanks for the current in service generation that you might be fighting you've got a look ahead to the future and that nicely segues on to MBT 80 we've talked about MBT 80 it was a program in britain 77 to about 1980 when it was cancelled where we were looking at what would be the ideal way of countering that soviet threat with the main battle tank and technologies were researched at the time when the project was cancelled because it was going on a long time MBT 80 at one point they were saying MBT meetings before tanks you know it was jokingly sort of said this idea might go on forever there was technology that were mature and the need to get a tank into service to bolster the chieftain fleet led to that cancellation of the MBT 80 project and challenger one going into service but as i mentioned in the earlier challenger one tank chat some of those technologies that were being looked at for MBT 80 were very advanced and very clever so they done things like they've been looking at things like mobility you know was a gas turbine an option and they put a gas turbine against a c' v12 diesel engine the key area though is relating to what we just talked about about the soviet threat was about firepower and gunnery because as we know really with challenging one when that went into service it had pretty much the same firepower levels as the earlier chieftain and we knew we're already thinking chieftains not going to be good enough for some of these soviet tanks coming into service so what are we doing next and one of the key things again for britain thinking where it might be fighting on the north german plane with that plethora of targets coming at it is let's look at the gunnery and the sighting systems because that's going to be most important for us and for MBT 80 they explored what we now know was of the hunter-killer system not particularly new because you had the idea of the commander as a hunter actually even on Conqueror and chieftain when he's got his separate coppola he can be looking out for other targets that was already a an earlier concept but with the development mbta t what they looked at was the idea instead of slaving the site to the main armament why not slave the main armament to the sign so what does that mean so instead of having as you normally have in a tank turret the site going parallel down the side Coe actually to the main armament so as you turn the gun around you're citing it why not do it the other way around where actually you can sight on target then the gun goes to where the target is the advantage of that of course is that the gunner can be doing his business whilst the commander is picking up targets and what they came up with was an idea that the commander is the hunter has his own site and what he actually does is he looks at the terrain he sights on an enemy he dots as it were on the computer that site the gun then turns to that fires the computers already working out the distance etc that that entails so the commander's moving on and he can actually dot a number of targets and actually override and prioritize targets etc now that is obviously a fairly complex system that they were looking at way back at the end of the 70s early 80s for potentially MBT 80 now they actually even included some of the avionics guys that were working on what becomes a tornado jet fighter for their fire systems etc and they're using to develop this some of the very first microbe processes so this was very technologically advanced but the whole point was it was trying to have the engagement time from chieftain and so let's make this much quicker so we can take on targets that much quicker so remember that one because that's one of those bits of technology that is really useful from MBT 80 now another issue that's going on as well in the background is Vickers defense system we all know the name Vickers back in the 30s and late twenties it's exporting tanks it's got a history of making export model vehicles and Vickers again after the Second World War they come up with the 37 ton it's like a mark 1 Vickers export tank but it's almost like a lighter version of the Centurion they realize there's always going to be a market out there for people that want to buy a tank that they don't necessarily need the top-end product all the time they need a tank but they don't necessarily have to have the cutting technology or the full weight specification of a cold war vehicle so the mark 1 Vickers tank was exported it went to Kuwait it went to India they carried on that program they came up with a later model that was sold out into Africa so Kenya and Nigeria were buying Vickers export tanks and in the mid 1980s after Challenger one's gone into service using some of the technology that had been developed for the MBT 80 program Vickers come up with what they call the mark 7 export tank that was available for sale and that tank used some of this new gunnery in its turret it looked at as well other types of stealth features almost like how do you actually stop yourself being targeted by the enemy in the first place so they start designing the turret so it pings back radar it's got issues so that you're not you don't appear so much so were easily on the electromagnetic spectrum so this type of thing was all put into this new turret and that tank this export tank ends up going down to lulworth down the road from here the gunnery ranges and they do a firing competition with the mark 7 Vickers export tank against a challenger one tank and this tank about halfs the engagement time and completely Kremes completely beat challenger ones in terms of the gunnery trial this was obviously something that the British Army was going to have to take notice of as well so Vickers are in that export game but they've also been developing this new tank turret using having the benefit of using some of the technologies that weren't necessarily ready in time or couldn't be put onto challenger 1 so there's that element as well to think about there and of course Britain has put challenger 1 into service now challenger 1 when it goes into service it only take Souths about it's just over about 400 of about a thousand tank fleet that was around at the time the rest of them had Steel chieftains and again when we look at that challenger one story it goes into service but it's not a full answer to the problems the specifications for MBT 80 what the British army really wanted has not necessarily been met fully and there's another element there which in the background there's almost this attitude that at some point in the future we are and they were probably estimating mid to late 90s we're going to need another tank to go into service that whether it's going to be bought from abroad or whether it's going to incorporate all these MBT 80 new types of technology we're going to need something there so this leads in 1986 what's called the master general ordnance Sir dick Vinson he goes off to Vickers defence system and he sits with them and he has a chat and he says look we're gonna have to require a new tank in the future and I'm just gonna read you my notes which actually list what that tank was going to be needed to do and the priorities that the British Army were going to put because as we all know a tank is always a compromise if you have got great firepower thick armor tends to make the tank slower mobility all those different elements what is it that Britain considered the primary role of that tank how's it going to work so let me just read to you what dick Vincent is ending up saying to Vickers and the priorities that come out of this that sets the Challenger 2 program in essence going with Vickers so this is what the British Army decides it wants and it's actually called a staff target land or stl for 0:04 this is what they say they want it to have new fire power to defeat at 2,000 metres the frontal armor of any Soviet tank and helicopters out to 3,000 metres again back then the new threat seems to be helicopters how are we going to take those down as well it's got to improve the survivability over challenger 1 it's got to have mobility as good as leopard 2 it's got to have availability in other words this can't be broken down all the time availability as good as challenger one which had increased considerably since way back in the days of chieftain and it's got to have interoperability hopefully with the same fuel same ammunition as other NATO countries and we see that changes slightly and the British Army says it orders these issues that go with a tank into this order firepower is prominent is is absolute paramount I should say survivability second mobility third reliability fourth interoperability fifth fight ability next simplicity again that was another really important thing there and command and control features last on that list there so that was how Britain looked at that as one of those issues when it's going to Vickers so what happens Vickers goes away it's often if you read the different accounts of channel you to it says it's a private venture not really because they know that the army is setting out this requirement they know that behind the scenes that there is a requirement for a tank that is going to meet the Army's needs other than challenger one and as we said that the army really wants about 800 to a thousand tanks in service challenger one is only making up about 400 of those tanks just slightly over that so that there is a need out there it's not just a pure private venture on behalf of Vickers they come back the following year to mo D with a couple of options one of which is a slightly souped up challenger one another one is an option that gives the mo D basically an improved challenger one hull but the real key it's almost got that turret off the mark 7 export tank it's going to cost you about sixty-five thousand pounds more but it's got that superior firepower that there it was at the top of the list from the mo d mo D goes away it looks at other industries it sort of says he goes to charity again and says what might you come up with and they come up with something called pit product improved tanks so there's a number of options that go on at the same time it is not a done deal with Vickers but Vickers ends up getting a contract to develop the Challenger 2 idea where lots of other things are being looked at at the same time and we'll talk about some of those in a second and so this idea that it's about 10 percent changes mo D sister because we would need it to do this not that etc as they go away and Vickers goes away and starts working on this and two key points come out here one of which is with the Challenger 2 mo D are absolutely determined that with that reliability this is going to be a tank that is heavily tested before it gets out to the troops and so we know about reliability all those different issues have really been dealt with so in the end they actually talk about challenger 2 is probably the most tested tank in history lots and lots of evaluation goes on lots of testing there's also a point as well where it becomes very much a co cooperative venture between MO D and Vickers because both sides want to get the best thing and that's always nice to hear because from the point of view of actually the end user true wants the best thing not just what they could have afforded etc at the time but I mentioned the word afforded because there's another key element there cost and this is one of those things that quite often when we talk about technologies etc we really bring in the idea of cost and the British government are obviously do not want to pay too much money for whatever tank is going into service Ness next so that this idea of a fixed price contract is really important for mo D with Vickers what can we get for that money and we can't see it creeping up all over the place but we need it to be a reliable vehicle and there's some of the items that might have been nice to see on challenger 2 in the end just don't get there because of cost issues and that money also this affects when a point in the program the British government says to MOT right let's lay out the options nine different options are being looked at including leopard 2 leopard 2 was assessed heavily the British army likes leopard 2 but it does not think that the levels of protection on the turret are good enough when they say about could we put Chobham armor on it that ended up we like the idea as well you know what about it change the smoothbore gun it said to it to a rifle gun and what happens there is that they decide that no that's going to take too long it's going to cost too much money would be another at least a couple of years we're going to drop that one and the leopard to package they like Abraham's as well that's offered as well but both the abrams and the leopard two comes in over 2.5 billion to pay for a new fleet of tanks and all the ansi leaders that go with that challenger 2 is being offered at 1.75 billion so that is one of those other key deciders and a course in the background you've got that issue that Margaret Thatcher at the time and then John Major they're very keen really to see MOT buy British as well they want to see that investment going into Vickers as a British company Vickers end up buying the Royal ordnance factory at Leeds they've got the new factory up in you car so you know there's a lot there's a point in 1989 where Vickers are saying listen unless we get smaller soon we're really looking at 1.5 million a month as it were just to keep these factories going and open with nothing there so we really need to if you if you're gonna use us otherwise again and this is one of those long-term strategic problems governments have do you want your own defence industry absolutely if you can't afford to keep one going and said Troy it's too small sink logical buy abroad but what when abroad is not available to sell to you or all of a sudden in times of war they might want material for their own Armed Forces and not want to sell to you so you know a whole host of other issues coming into play here politics as well as budgets there now I mentioned earlier as well MBT 80 what was going on with some of that research gunnery we've said about the sighting but also the Royal armaments research and development establishment is looking at a new hundred and twenty millimeter rifle gun now when they said earlier they wanted interoperability with other nations why didn't we go for smoothbore now Britain has what some people have almost called an obsession with a Hesh round and Hesh has to be fired by a rifled gun to get its best effect so what is it about Hesh Britain liked Hesh because the primary purpose of a 120 gun is firing an armor-piercing round and as we know a thing around the longer the fin drowned the more force behind it the more our MOA is going to go through so that was the primary round but secondary for the role of high explosive and potential bunker busting knocking our other armor etc a Hesh round high explosive squash head works very very well as well and Britain like this the whole idea of a Hesh round a thin outer coating an inert sort of material on the top of it the rest of the shell full of high explosive a detonator at the base and the idea is is it doesn't matter about the force behind the round when it hits it target it tends to have its armor or building it will pancake it will squash against that target before the detonator hits as well and detonates that pancake of high explosive that sends a shock wave if it's on the plate through and a scab comes off on the inside now that means you can fire this round at an enormous distance because the force is not the issue as long as it hits the target the effect will be the same and we like that and in the end actually that that hex round very useful we were even using practice Hesh rounds that are actually full of concrete in operation telic in Iraq because they were actually firing these practice rounds till you do what they call mouse holding it would end up borrowing its way through things like concrete or adobe walls giving a hole for the soldiers to follow through without collateral damage so again very interesting use thereof of a training hash round so Britain's still like that idea of hey so again that gun married up with that mark seven turret is going to give challenger that fighting edge now in May of 1994 challenger - after various different types of trials is accepted into service those trials continue as I mentioned its tested its trialed all the time by the summer of 1994 it's driven about 22,000 kilometers there's nine prototypes it's a Robert Heyman Joyce who's put in charge of the project at one point he gets some extra money out the Treasury let's be able nine prototype so Camry trial all the different features of Challenger really to get the best from it reliability improvement programs they're called as they're going on what can we make this better how can we make it more efficient they end up with those nine prototypes to are made in Newcastle the rest of them made down at the Leeds Factory and this one standing next to me is actually v5 their v12 v9v Vickers were not your vehicle and this one veh a motive trial so it's driven around the place so 22,000 kilometers driven by those Challenger prototype vehicles twelve thousand rounds fired by the main armament you know this is really a heavily tested tank before it's accepted it goes into production those first vehicles that come out have problems and that's another little lesson to learn so the prototype vehicle was compared to the production vehicles aren't always the same so that led the army to do introduced sort of field trials teams and integration teams so that it worked out though I think it's about four in every 38 challenger twos that came off the production line ended up being taken to one side and examined heavily and they was also helped as well that the field army could help integrate when they're actually being issued so that they could be warned of or look at some of those issues so those those problems any other problems when you've got a big complex system they're bound to be there can be ironed out quickly and that is fed back to the production run now this all takes place over from the later 1980s cold war still going on obviously the Berlin Wall comes down in 1990 there was an initial estimate eight hundred plus challenger twos might be needed as soon as the ball a Berlin wall comes down it comes down to about 360 plus challenger twos are actually put on order and in 1990 with the Gulf War another thing that comes into play as well is the all production or all development is stopped at that particular time so concentrations can go on to the Challenger one fleet going out to fight in the Gulf War so that was another one of those areas where again actually in the background Vickers kept on the development and tested program at their own expense because they're very keen to make sure this is a good product there so it's given out to the field army it's a tank that as I say has had tremendous amounts of research going on behind it it's got it takes with it the hull in essence slightly improved from the Challenger one it's got an improved level of dorchester Armour on it there's going to be put on that it's got this fantastic hunter-killer system in terms of the gunnery it's got a C v12 diesel engine in the back of it and and it is quite an impressive package and again when it's issued to the Troops there is this sort of sense of when they're looking at it they're looking at the pros and cons this is a real step change from challenger 1 and chieftain that's been in service so that's that bit of the development story let's just have a look now as some of the features by looking at our challenger 2 here so looking at challenger 2 we can see there are similarities in how it looks like challenger 1 the big difference of course if you're just trying to do from the point of view of recognition how do you tell challenger one from challenger to look at that what they call a bar bet that's above the main gun that contains togs underneath the housing there that's in the middle on challenger 2 above the gun on challenger 1 is on the side of the turret so looking at the different features we've mentioned already the firepower this is the L 30 jargon 120 millimeter it's rifled still it's got the muzzle reference distance on the end of the barrel the sight there above for the thermal observation this one because it's v5 we don't actually have the commander's round sight that's normally just in front of his position is not fixed to v5 but the idea there that is what the commander is looking through and it's got a 360 vision can go all the way around and the Gunners sight is actually in front of it on the turret top and there's a revisionary an old telescopic sight that actually is on the side of the gun so that if all the other systems fail they can still look through and it's got the old graticule and crosshairs and still aim the gun if the other systems break down at all it's got a laser range-finding system on it that is accurate plus or minus five meters out to nine thousand nine hundred and fifty meters and again back to looking at generations a tank this idea that you can accurately estimate your target really important so that again if you're firing her ship it's going over the top you know exactly where it's going to land if you're firing directly it's in range because again flat trajectory of a fin round that's going off there direct towards a target these are all elements that come into play and on the back of the turret in one of the bustles there's actually a wither reading station that again feeds information into the main computer so if you're going to be firing and there's a crosswind etc all of those atmospherics are taking into account before the main armament is actually fired so again we've mentioned the fact this gun they're lasting longer in service because now with this gun they're actually chroming the barrels one of the things we don't often talk about is obviously when it round actually goes down that rifle barrel it actually is tremendously abrasive as it's going down the barrel so it actually wears away very very quickly by chroming the barrel you're extending barrel life and so it'll go on a lot longer and again these things all actually come into play when we talked earlier about cost because you don't really we're placing a very very expensive buy all too often same as why they've got simulators now actually let's we do need to fire real rounds that's the only way the soldiers are going around they would find out but if they can learn a lot of that on simulators and training aids etc it brings the overall cost of running a tank down but very effective gunnery system they're inside the turret to actually man that you've got the traditional three guys in the turret fourth guy down the front as a driver so commander hunter looking out for the targets using that sighting system the gunner sits in front of him he's got almost what little ice of PlayStation controls for controlling the actual gun and firing on the opposite side again is the loader the loader has again go back to looking like a challenger one and even before that chieftain rounds are stowed around him it's what we would now call three-part ammunition got the round would go in followed by a bag charge that are in protected bins the these go around the bottom of Atari and they are they're all kept by the way any explosives kept below the turret line so they gain extra protection there the bank charge goes in and then there's a small cartridge that is actually used to actually fire that out the end of the barrel with a tremendous force that you can imagine that goes on in there so three of them drivers down at the front he's the guy that again from the point of view he's got a reclining position that so the gain that that keeps the turret nice and low when he's driving along or he can make his seat sit up so he can look straight forward he's got a night sign if he wants to be driving at night as well that he can change on his fishing port there but one of the areas that was criticising in the up future upgrade he's bound to change and the commander does not have a night sight so that he can't engage in the same way as a gunner can in that hunter-killer manner and that's one of the future improvements that the again that was a cost issue early days picked up very early on that was one of the disappointments from what otherwise is a it's a very superb and accurate gunnery system twelve seconds by the way to turn that entire turret around and it's if you watch it on exercise etc it's very very impressive how quickly it can lock onto a target and how quickly the crew they can engage because this was one of the aims it had to be about twice as fast and they wanted it all to be then challenger 1 + chieftain before it drivers I mentioned in there it's a tiller system he's using and to power the vehicle along at the back is a CV 12 rolls-royce turbocharged diesel engine now that can get the vehicle up on Road speeds officially about 60 kilometers they can go way faster than that actually probably about 280 on roads challenger 2 has eight fuel tanks which altogether take about 1500 liters carried under the armor but of course if you look around the back there's those two extra fuel drums 350 litre fuel drums that means it gives about an extra hundred kilometres if you put those on as well on range so a challenger 2 can go with its normal fuel 450 kilometres or an extra hundred 550 is carrying those two extra fuel drums on the rear in terms of weight the overall vehicle here again it's down just over 60 tons when they add all the extra armor on so what we would call theater entry standard so they will put the side armor on the extra armor on the front the bridging weight then goes up they actually classified as an 80-ton bridging weight on this particular vehicle and so it becomes a much different vehicle so really what you're looking at normally is when it trains it doesn't have the extra arm or the extra armor depending on the nature of the conflict it goes to they add the extra dorchester arm around the sides front packs as well or ear armory explosive reactive armor goes on the front so that all that gets added on and because of Operation telic and the idea of urban warfare bar armor can be added as well so depending on the nature of the conflict you're going to you will build up that levels of protection now our v5 here is has not got the bazooka plates on the side in fact those bazooka plates are really there just to take the signature down a bit and hold the dust down actually again it would be standard practice to add Dorchester level two armor packs on the side as soon as you were going to go off to conflict so you wouldn't normally see and this one hasn't got any put any plates on at all now as part of that transmission the engine pack in the back is bolted to a TN 54 transmission that's all comes out you can change the engine in about hour and a half which again is tremendously different from the eight hours previously for vehicles like chieftain or about you know about an hour we think on leopard 2 to do an engine chase and that engine is giving that power to about 1200 put upgrading slightly in the future to the drive sprocket which in British vehicles again is at the rear there and that's driving this track along and what you're looking here and this is double pin track it's got rubber pads on the rubber pads are only really to protect roads and there's no issue about they don't add anything to the combat efficiency it just tanks ripping up the roads certainly in his legal requirement in most Western European countries double pin going through and this is what they call a live track and the actual bushes in there actually sprung and that's what means that the track if you lay it down it's got a natural curve inwards it wants to curve up because of that springing system then there so hence the phrase live track that they've got their road wheels you've got double road wheels twelve on each side and again during the production run just like the track actually three different types of track have been used on challenger as improvements coming to service these are the early road wheels later on they ended up with road wheels with little holes in 15 holes reduce the weight a little bit but that wasn't the issue it was to stop mud compacting between the double wheels and again these road wheels are on hydrographs suspension arms have a look at our recent workshop Diaries where Jonathan takes you through how Hydra gas works basically nitrogen gas and and oil and it acts both as a damper and a spring as well as you're going along so it's a shock absorber and it springs back all with that one arm and it's a really sophisticated system by horsemen defense and it gives a tremendously smooth ride which again by having a smooth ride it means that gun when you're firing on the move it's got a much more accurate chance of hitting the target because you've got such a stable platform underneath you as you're moving along when you're looking at the outside of a challenger 2 tank and you're really looking at his skin the key armor protection is underneath so for example with the turret it's got a cast front to weld it back to it but then the Cobham armor pacs are put on there and this thin metal skin is welded over the top so it's underneath is a key element of again with challenger tanks that very interesting matrix that makes up Chobham armor which has tremendously good defensive capabilities not just against kinetic enemy energy rounds but chemical rounds as well so really important feature there and as i mentioned earlier or we'll mention a very important thing that gives confidence to the crews because their survivability of a challenger is that standing again looking at some of those other features that we can see from the outside smoke dischargers banked either side but challenged you're also like a number of tanks has a the way of making smoke by being able to put diesel on to the hot exhaust and that builds up a big white smoke team very quickly so you can hide yourself back off your reposition etc without the enemy being able to visually see you and again you'll see that faceted surface which I talked about earlier on part of that is to do with this idea of lessening your signature to radar and again a lot of things that you might have seen on the outside of the tank in the older days are actually now hidden in those boxes at the rear the bustle and the back of the turret they're actually there's a number of different boxes there so other equipment is hidden in there rather being on the outside which actually changes the signature of the vehicle and again in the back of that bustle you've got an NBC and overpressure system and also for the crews one of the great advantages we've challenged it to you've also got a crew temperature system so that you can actually adjust the temperature inside the vehicle which of course if you're out in batters on the Canadian Prairies in cold weather fantastic that you got a heating system or the other extreme is if it's getting very hot in there it's in essence a type of air conditioning there as well so that's again a really important feature for the for crews comfort and the ergonomics and again you're looking at a generation where what you might call the earlier tanks the ergonomics have been fought through an awful lot better so that all the guts of the tanks are wiring there was half a ton of wiring on I think it was chieftain alone you know all of that that was exposed inside the turret much of that's now gone in the in the way it's been put together fire suppression system for the engine that you've got there as well that you'll see on a lot of modern vehicles now and again overall one of the things that comes across as I mentioned that word economics the crews liked challenger to an awful lot it's not just it's got that better firepower at firepower there's a lot more comfort elements to do with challenger TRO crew this has got a a hydraulic tensioner system the driver contention the track inside that gain means where rates of the track down go go through the roof if you've got slack track it's wearing it quicker so things like that or fall through and really do benefit the crew compared to that previous generation there and so overall a very impressive but a kit and something as I mentioned as well it's going to be in-service quite some time so those upgrades just like they've been going on all the time really as this tanks gone into service smaller upgrades have been going on throughout its service life and that's why when you look at some of the imagery you'll see very difference not just the protection standards but sometimes different items like I mentioned the road wheels that's part and parcel of just a tank being in service as newer items coming to play or a better model of something is there to be used now challenger 2 is seen operational service it went off to the Balkans where again fortunately didn't have to fire its gun in anger but as we've talked about before quite often with peace enforcement just turning up with a tank tends to make people back off understand the issues some of the factions in the Balkans were actually invited to see challenger 2 firing just from that point of view of saying listen this is the sort of threat we have here if we have to use it so it's been there it's seen service in in Europe it's seen service of course in Operation telic 2003 the invasion of Iraq from Kuwait and the British forces there ended up going out with a battle group 7th armored Brigade ends up there going out and using the Challenger 2 there are engagements with enemy tanks it is very successfully used and one of the things that come out when you look at Operation telic is the survivability of the tanks they're going back to that design process dorchester level 2 armor the extra armor that was put on the size has a tremendous confidence giving boost to the crews because one of those challenger twos was actually struck by 30 or over 30 RPGs none of them penetrated there was only one penetration of a challenger to where the driver got slightly wounded in his foot there was a loss of a challenger too but that was a blue on blue incident so actually you know there's always going to be something that's going to defeat a tank at some point but in Operation telic that talked just a level to Armour the upgrades etc really prove their worth we're here on Salisbury Plain at a training area called cope Hill down and were with the crew of three for Bravo that's a challenger two of the Royal Tank Regiment and the crew are going to tell us what their role is and how they dope rate a vehicle such as this sergeant James teeths you're the commander of this vehicle can you just tell us a little bit first of all about what your role is as a commander of a challenger - my role is a challenge the commander is but I have overall control of the vehicle and all over three because as four was complete inside the vehicle ensuring that the Gunners lay down sleek red targets my drivers going the right direction and not going over any dangerous ground and the operators loading the main armament or more importantly making briefs for the crew as well at the same time that's your role it's not my role I delegate that one off the normal makeup of our troop would be with a bar to be there which is from a second lieutenant officer roughly sometimes a captain maybe we have our chief sergeant which myself we have our senior corporal which is a more experienced at the to corporal tank commanders and we have a junior cohort just normally joined us just off the back of his commanders course and then actually rotate for YouTube and experience you then go up the call signs from there on I don't think there's ever a time limit to becoming an effective tank commander I think every time you do an exercise is always something new to learn as a commander and obviously they're looking for people I think to be a very competent tank commander it takes to about three to maybe four years to really get a grip everything you need to do as it goes for the be really good it just never really ends you can always do real good oh no comment and challenger 2 is a tank and you like it you know what's the pros and cons of working on coming to food I think I mean it's a good vehicle I think any vehicle is bought into service to have their issues we all have to work around it as a running vehicle as long as they're kept all the time running there were quite good reliable vehicles at times we have a massive impact on the battlefield not only not only just as a fear factor for the enemy you know we've seen when these come around the corner as a dismount it's quite you know quite terrifying and but also just holding the ground and working with our infantry of our infancy callsigns it's just a good mixture trooper Louis Harrington you are the driver of this Challenger - can you tell us a little bit about what it's like to drive a challenger - it is pretty intense driving it off-road is really fun because it can go out to some really high speeds whilst going on for some really rough terrain whilst the gun is also inside trying to keep keep the gun level and it's kind of four targets and that sort of thing so yeah it's really enjoyable my vision is basically when I'm hatch down it's just through that small sight just there you do have a permanent view of the front of the vehicle so you you can scan look for enemy and that sort of thing whereas everyone else is looking for a site which is obviously always on the move the best way to tell if you're doing the right is the less input your commander has so if your commanders talking to you all the time obviously he's having to bring you on but if your commander sort of allowing you to do it and he knows you're competent and you can get into a fire position without him having to tell you where to go you can he can point off a woodlot wood block in the in the distance and you can find the best route tactically to get there so once you get to that sort of point then you know yeah you're doing higher and what's it like driving at night though we have night sights that we can put in which are good to an extent you can see quite a bit it's a lot more difficult that you can't really tell texture on the ground so it's hard to read ground as you drive in so everything looks flat so if you're going off cross-country everything just looks pan frettin flat in front of you and that's when you sort of start to have to rely on the other crewmembers and especially the gunner because he's got quite a good view if if he's scanning out to the front he can be calling bumper head come right stick and that sort of things so you it like I say at night is it's difficult but it's easily workable why'd you drive in normal civilian life I have a Volkswagen Scirocco okay and do you find that jumping between the two ever doing this you've got to be quite aggressive of everything right you brake you really have to put a lot force on your brake so as soon as you jump in your civilian car you jab the brakes on you kind of wolf fly for debate no not in the tank so schoolboy stuff is it a bit of a thrill driving one of these yeah 100% that's the main reason I joined the regiment is to drive for challenge' - it's a big massive lump of metal with a v12 engine in it that's got a lot of power and it is for for someone who's a bit of a petrol letting lunch driving yes fantastic [Music] so your trooper Col Davis and you all begun along this challenge you too Lamia could you just tell us a little bit about what that role is is being a gunner Samara on the vehicle is I'm in control of the 120 millimeter coming the collects the amount a machine gun along with the rest of the crew my job is to mainly find identify and eliminate targets if we identify a vehicle I'll then report that all command or will give me the authority to fire that vehicle I'll go through the systems to get the vehicle on on target and then fire and eliminate the vehicle so we have a hash round which is our high-explosive round which you'd use for more almond personnel carriers or softer skin vehicles we have a fin round which is a in essence a dot and all the piercing round which you'd use for anti tangles stuff lava and then we have smoke for the vehicle and we have the correct amount of machine gun which is seven six two and when you go on an exercise you get to fire most of those rooms yeah we get to fire all Dormition when you fight for the first time is it's genuine little experience it's it's pretty surreal when you fire it and you feel the kick of the gun and actually sit in the vehicle and do it for the first time and what's it feel like seeing the effect of some of those rounds on the target I think when you do it downrange is first time you realize what what kind of power you in control over the vehicle and see you seen the ricocheting some of the stuff you can do with it it's pretty amazing Lance Corporal David King you're the operator all the loader on this challenger - can you just give us a little bit of an indication about what that role what it entails yeah so on the operator side are locking the turret with the gunner and the commander basically the role of that of the operators what should be doing is I'm on that side I'll be loading the gun so making sure that the Gunners as soon as he's found the target he's ready to fire their summit in their gun ready to go down and kill what's on the other side we've got three different types that we can use mostly we've got a fin we got the hash we've also got a smoke around whether we know we're going to incur meet more tanks rather than a soft skin takes what I mean some we're going to take containing with more that the radio side as well so even if it there any of those go down I've gotta make sure they're always up and running because if we lose communications we've lost communications and the powerfulness something we don't want to do we don't want to be isolated at any point and the minor thing where we get to hide and usually the mother of the same so make sure everyone's fed everyone's out there bruised everyone's all nice and warm as well okay so sort of the father figure it all the mother figure commander you've got the mother on the operator side all right so I've really enjoyed myself because it's that point you can kind of step up and you can show off to everyone that you you can do it you've kind of got mostly responsibilities that the commander but if anything goes wrong it's not really your fault this is always a commander's fall so you can take Stavanger well they say it's fallen on mine and then we've also got like a gunnery wing up a camp where we can actually practice load in the round so it's like a mock inside of the turret actually practice load in the rounds they practiced thrown in so something could go wrong and they've got to see how quickly you can deal with there and you've got to deal with properly at the same time with everybody makes the previous a missions go up with the round off you've got the charge of you'll make sure both of them cop as quick as possible make sure the right charge goes with the right round it's up with you fumbling about for the wrong round in with the wrong charge not gonna hit the target or for the charge without the round so it's a lot of pressure on it make sure you do it properly you don't want to be that one they're obviously muddles up and it depends what tank you on how much stick you're gonna get afterwards they've got issue bleeders well you should have to do straightaway because you're the senior guy in that troops be able to do it but the more junior guys they do tend to do something wrong and all that then you should come off from the teacher monthly properly you can be lucky enough to stay the crew for quite a while but then people get promoted people get moved away people do tend to leave sometimes you do have to change you about but if you go deployed so we went to a man we kept our crews with a couple months that we were there there's just not as fun a daily basis you're moving around for sometimes when you're in camp you don't do anything the crews can change because you can get promoted or people could not want to be anyone to leave you do normally want to stick together a last school we had we got quite good ones gift we knew we had to do it so me everyone knows you're like a well-oiled machine my dad was in the full throttle measurement so he was back in the day and he was just to say that a tank these were the best way and it was always the one you wanted to go to so it's kind of grown up with him stories and the pictures of him standing from the tanks and telling me like he was a commander and it was better in his day and the Army's not way it used to be anymore so I'm kind of just trying to show him to proven that I can go out there being commander just like him yeah no I love it yeah I love being a tank commander I think I think if you if you joined the regiment you join in Royal Tank Regiment it should be the seat that you want to be in a voice you're in the wrong place basically and and I say to a lot of the younger lads when we work on the vehicle you know they have just doing it squadron you know there is no better feeling you know being at the top of your arms out the coppola cross country you know doing 40 kilometres an hour going into a battle run close down you know it's a great feeling great responsibility as well but it's great now challenger 2 if you go online at any time one of the issues that's going on is that obviously in its service life it's had a continuous number of smaller upgrades things that go on to keep it in in better trim or here's a better product or how do we go it the truth though is is it's going to have to stay in service at the moment the Army's arguing 20 35 maybe 20 40 it's going to need a much more let major upgrade and a number of different projects were being put together to see about whether it's automotive whether it's gonna read what that upgrade should be now we're fortunate here at Bovington we can look at that with you in the future because Bovington is where the trials and development unit is we can be talking to industry as well and we'll come back to challenge you to - in the future so we can show you what that upgrades going to be and already from what we know about it it's quite an exciting development for the Challenger 2 tank because again and we'd come back we would say this here at the tank museum wouldn't we what's happened in the Challenger 2 lifespan we've looked at seeing the tank yet again go through the Cold War dividends half the Royal armoured call regiments ended up being cut during the 1990s the Challenger the main battle tank fleet came down an awful lot and it's now probably around 260 tanks old with some in reserve so what's going to happen with the tank in the future when of course as you've like following the tank subject we had a point where it was no there's no need for the tank again and yet that pendulum has swung back other countries not just Britain are reinvesting in tanks there's options for new tanks some countries have looked at some are putting into production and of course what a lot of people are doing is instead of rebuilding a brand new tank or they're rebuilding an older version hence that phrase platform they're looking at a tank as a platform what do we add to it what might we take off how do we configure it for the nature of the conflict it might be going into so that idea about the tank being dead we've always said that here come on let's be careful about that but we can help show you what's going to happen with challenger 2 in the future because this is a tank the British Army is going to be used in some sort of configurator for probably decades to come if you're interested to know more about Challenger two we've helped in this Haynes manual on the Challenger two you can get this for our shop so look at our online website which sells all sorts of other products as well and do please support us by subscribing to our YouTube channel and if you have the opportunity also back us by funding our food patron we are an independent charity we can only carry on doing all this if people like yourself support us so please do find a way of supporting the Tank Museum

Channel: The Tank Museum

Views: 1,203,014

Rating: 4.8749886 out of 5

Keywords: the tank museum, tank museum, bovington tank museum, david fletcher, david willey, military tank, challenger 1, challenger 2, challenger 2 david willey, challenger 2 tank chat

Id: re-zMIOtSk0

Length: 52min 55sec (3175 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 19 2020