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Any ex Tankies/Military buffs on here?


akka
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Anyone know what this old tank is? It's on Salisbury plain just north of Larkhill. Its riddled with bullet/shell holes. The lad would like to know, to see if he can get one in War Thunder (computor game, apparently 🤔) cheers.20240814_192803.jpg.54367509d31615c9937fb09f7ee0cce3.jpg

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It is a Chieftain.

Now I used to shoot with a guy who was twenty-two years 9/12 Royal Lancers. And one day at a charity shop I got a book titled "Modern Armoured Fighting Vehicles". On Wednesdays we used to have a club social with tea, cakes, and other "scoff" after shooting. So I took the book down and used it like a flash card game.

"Ok. What's this?"

"Separate front roadwheel. T55."

"And this?"

"Six roadwheels, evenly spaced. T72."

"This one?"

"Five wheels. Fume extractor middle of barrel. T62."

And so it went one for another seven of so vehicles and at that we gave up. Sometimes a detail of an exhaust port, of if the searchlight was to the left or right side of the turret or the position of the fume extractor or location of any external fuel tanks or not. Every one correct. But as he said that's all they did. Sat and looked a silhouettes, movie films, slides and pictures until they learned them. As he said see it. identify it, kill it. Before it kills you. And if you kill it and the surviving crew evacuated you machine gunned and killed them too. It was amazing that still fifteen plus years out of the army and he still new them.

I guess with the Chieftain he'd even likely be able to have told you which "mark" it was.

 

Edited by enfieldspares
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2 minutes ago, enfieldspares said:

It is a Chieftain.

Now I used to shoot with a guy who was twenty-two years 9/12 Royal Lancers. And one day at a charity shop I got a book titled "Modern Armoured Fighting Vehicles". On Wednesdays we used to have a club social with tea, cakes, and other "scoff" after shooting. So I took the book down and used it like a flash card game.

"Ok. What's this?"

"Separate front roadwheel. T55."

"And this?"

"Six roadwheels, evenly spaced. T72."

"This one?"

"Five wheels. Fume extractor middle of barrel. T62."

And so it went one for another seven of so vehicles and at that we gave up. Every one correct. But as he said that's all they did. Sat an looked a silhouettes, movie films, slides and pictures until they learned them. As he said see it. identify it, kill it. It was amazing that still fifteen plus years out of the army and he still new them.

I guess with the Chieftain he'd even likely be able to have told you which "mark" it was.

 

We used to be tested a couple of times a year in BAOR there would be a board with silhouettes of fighting vehicles ,some of ours some of the ememies, as said things like the machine gun placement could mean the difference between a T72 /55 etc, then there was aircraft to remember as well , hip hook and hind helicopters still lodged in my memory.

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