Here we are now on the turret of the Chieftain main battle tank.
Now obviously the Chieftain is very dear to my heart,
purely because it was the first tank that I ever trained on,
and my first ever job in the Royal Army Corps was as Chieftain driver.
The Chieftain itself obviously came with a crew of 4,
it saw service from the 1960’s to around about the 1990’s.
Weighing in at about 55 tons,
at a top speed of around about 30 miles an hour,
it was without a doubt one of the first true main battle tank.
Starting off at the front of the Chieftain then, some of the main parts,
First of all we have the glacis plate.
Located on either side of the glacis plate,
we have the head lights and next to each one of the head lights,
we have the IR lights as well.
Also you notice that quite unusual for any tank design,
we also had side lights.
Backwards you see quite clearly we’ve got the drivers position,
i.e. the driver’s hatch,
and also the periscope assembly,
so he can actually drive either opened up or enclosed fully down as well.
Directly above him you can see the gun bellows and the mantlets
and located coaxially mounted on there is the coaxially mounted machine gun.
The main armament. Well the main armament obviously on the Chieftain was 120mm rifled gun.
And you can see there that we’ve got a thermal sleeve surrounding it,
passing all the way down,
we have various clamps that secured the thermal sleeve in place,
until we get to the fume extractor.
And finally if we carry on all the way down,
it finishes at the end with the muzzle of the gun,
and also the muzzle reference system and the shroud above it.
Now we are going to deal with in a bit more the detail the turret of the Chieftain.
At the moment and just in front of me you can see the NBC compartment.
Directly in front of the NBC compartment we have the metadyne access cover,
and just to the left of the metadyne access cover,
we have the turret batteries.
Directly in front of the turret batteries,
you can see, it was just the stork,
or where we used to put the flashing light if we had to do a road move for example,
and the first of our antenna bases just next to that.
There are various stowage bins on the Chieftain,
I’ll explain some of those in a bit more detail.
The one you can see just to your left there can be used for anything,
but most crews tended to put things like the cooking equipment in there.
In this location here we have the loaders hatch or the operators hatch.
Again this was a spring loaded hatch, which used to break on quite a frequent basis,
and to the right of that obviously we have the commander’s cupola.
Now the commander’s cupola on Chieftain was enabled to be actually moved independently,
and we will have a look at that in a bit more detail when we get inside.
Also the commanders hatch, again had various positions,
so it could be fully opened like it is now,
the midway position,
it could also be in the umbrella position,
or it could of course be fully shut.
Directly in front you can see the outside of the episcopes,
of where the commander’s site was,
and again that had its own individual washer and wiper system.
And just to the left of that is where you would find the commanders GPMG,
General Purpose Machine Gun.
On the Chieftain there was the ability for the commander
to fire the GPMG from actually inside his cupola.
And just to the left of that there is a stowage box there
where you could put a box of 200 rounds of ammunition.
More stowage bins just to the right,
it became fondly known as the commander's bin
because that tended to be where the commander put all of his equipment into,
and beneath that is another basket,
again we tended to as a crew put the camouflage net in this one.
Although not fitted on here at the moment you can see the spool of the reel there,
that’s were the Don 10 used to go.
Just to the left of loaders position we can see the armored hood there which housed the thermal site.
Also on the loaders position, although not fantastic,
we also had a rotational sight for the loader himself
so that he could see very small field of view from inside the turret when it was fully closed down.
Directly in front of the commander's cupola,
was the gunner’s sight, the gunner’s main site with an armored ballistic cover.
The gunner’s main sight also had its own washer and wiper system.
And just to the left of that was the armored hood cover for the gunner’s auxiliary sight,
again more of that when we get inside the turret.
If you move forward we've also got a lifting eye,
this was one of the eyes that was moved if, god forbid,
you had to actually lift the turret for reasons of maintenance.
And finally on the left and right of the turret are the multi-barreled smoke grenade dischargers,
and we will see the control for activating those again when we get inside the turret.
Ok, quickly looking there at the Chieftain's suspension.
First thing you notice is the track idler located to the front.
At the moment this particular one then, obviously most of it,
and we have got three return rollers on there located just underneath the tracks,
is covered by the bazooka or glacis plate,
and notice that unlike some that we will see later on,
they've got foliage hooks attached to the glacis plate.
Just a quick closer look at the Chieftain's suspension pack there, this one’s great it's actually off.
A couple of things I want to point out,
obviously the top roller is there which we pointed out on the actual vehicle.
Some of the road wheel hubs, you can see the locking wheel nuts on there,
and also a thing which was an absolute nightmare for the drivers to change was the spring packs.
The spring packs are compressed in there and are found behind,
but obviously it was the worst, drivers worst nightmare was to try and change one of those.
There are a total of 6 road wheels,
and finally located to the rear we find the drive sprocket.
One of the things to note on the drive sprocket,
although slightly dirty at the moment, is one of the indicator indentations.
This was just an indication of when the teeth of the sprocket would worn down
and we when it gets near to that indentation it just means that the sprocket really does need changing.
Let’s now have a look at the back of the Chieftain.
First of all you find one of the two tow hooks, one on either side.
we've also got the rear indicators of course and the rear lenses.
Stowage position for the first aid kit.
And one of two stowage bins that you would find on the back of the Chieftain.
Usually found in here some of the driver’s tools.
One of the exhausts.
And on the back we've got two rear towing hooks as well.
Also in the center you've got the convoy light,
and all the convoy light means that if tanks were following each other,
we could have all the lights turned off and they could still follow the tank in front of them.
Directly above that we have got the gun crutch and the moment it’s in the stowed position,
and to the left of the gun crutch we have the tank telephone.
This was just the means so the infantry could talk when they were in the rear of the tank.
OK and now we are inside the Chieftain,
and we are going to look at each of the crew stations in turn.
First of all, of course I am sat now in the commander’s seat,
the commander’s seat hydraulically operated,
so that of course when we are traveling with the hatch open,
the commander could actually jack the seat up and see outside.
A few of the main controls,
obviously very apparent directly in front of you is the commander’s sight, binocular type sight.
Just to the left of that is the elevation hand wheel for the commander’s GPMG.
There's the ability to elevate and obviously depress,
and also with a locking device on there as well.
Vision blocks located all the way around,
and just to the right probably the most important thing for the commander’s station,
is the commander’s control and monitoring unit.
This is a computer that actually works out all the ballistic calculations etc. when you do fire the main armament.
Directly to the front and left of the commanders sight is the commander's fire control box,
and on the commander's fire and control box we have got the commander's control.
The ability to select between coax and main armament,
the firing switch, the red bakelite firing switch,
also there is a rocker switch.
Push it up for lays and down for auto lay.
And again you won't get to see it from where you are at the moment,
but just to the top right hand corner of that there is a push button selector type switch,
which can select between the different natures of ammunition.
Just behind the commander you have the power supply unit,
and you also have the control cubicle for the gun control equipment.
Directly behind that is control panel, again this just deals with the gun control equipment.
And just to the left of the commander’s control and monitoring unit was the traverse hand wheel.
This enables the commander to move the cupola left and right.
And finally really in the commander’s station you've got the commanders grip switch.
On pushing that in it enabled the commander then to have complete control
and override the gunner for power, traverse, and left right and also elevation and depression by means of the toggle switch.
Let's now move down into the gunner’s station and have a look at some of the main controls that he's got.
The first thing then obviously, the most important part of the gunners station
is the sight laser range finder, now this particular one was the number 6 MK1.
A few key things on there, you have your grayscale adjusters,
and also again binocular vision, there would be a brow pad actually located on there.
To the right of that the various controls that the gunner has got available to him.
The metadyne controls. The metadyne are what actually powers the power traverse on the Chieftain.
And to the right of that we saw outside the multi-barreled smoke grenade dischargers,
this is the ability then that the gunners got to fire those,
so left and right bangs for the multi-barreled smoke grenade dischargers.
Moving down below that various control panels
the more important ones really on here were the gunners lighting and control box.
Various things on here that he could control,
the IPC, the window wipers, and the gunners IR sight and also a few dimmer switches.
Moving forwards, like the commander has got a grip switch would use in the power traverse,
the gunners got exactly the same thing, but remember of course the commander has the ability to override it.
And to the left between the gunner’s legs was the gunner’s fire control handle.
Again if you see on here the ability underneath the rocker switch to select either coax,
or main armament,
the rocker switch just to the right of that,
which enables us to lays or auto lays,
and the bottom right the push button select switch which enabled the gunner
to select the different natures of ammunition.
Located just to the left of that, although it is tied up at the moment,
is the elevation hand wheel and all that would enable to do, the gunners to do was manually elevate or depress the main armament.
Across to the right, again, a manual ability for the gunner
to traverse left and right and this was located on the turret traverse gear box.
And finally really in the gunners station you've got the gunners auxiliary sight.
You saw the access hatch from the outside,
this is just a very, very primitive means where the gunner can actually,
if needs be, when the main sight goes down, still fire the main armament using the gunner’s auxiliary site.
OK, now I've moved across to the loader's position there,
and you can see again like some of the vehicles which you have already come in,
although not particularly roomy it’s actually a lot better than some.
Moving on to some of the key details in here.
You obviously see there is an awful lot of stowage inside the Chieftain.
Um, the various things the bag charge containers,
extremely useful for keeping beers in we used on exercise sometimes,
and also some of the main armored rounds.
What we've got here at the moment you can see is some of the inert rounds,
for example the hesh, etc.
This particular Chieftain is fitted with a VRC353,
and always the ability to put up there on the stowage rack two VRC3s next to each other.
And also although not in the correct stowage position at the moment,
you can see quite clearly here, the boiling vessel,
the singularly most important thing obviously for the British army which enabled them to make hot water.
Moving on away on the rounds one of the incredibly important things for the loader was the loader's safety switch.
Safe and a live position.
Safe position what it does, it means that there was no power traverse enabled to the turret.
You can see various stowage positions located all the way around here,
and also another important control panel was the NBC,
the nuclear biological and chemical control panel.
This is the means by which the loader controls the vents,
located on the NBC panel which you looked at when we were on the outside.
And finally really to the front left of the turret of the Chieftain,
you've got the stowage rack for 7.62mm machine gun ammunition located there.
And this should be unboxed, linked up and fed directly up the feed chute
into this position here which is where the 7.62mm machine would have been mounted.
So the other important things then on the breach,
the replenisher and the replenisher tell tale rod,
which is bad news at the moment as we can't actually pull it out at all.
The stock running back.
All this enabled us to do meant that the breach couldn't actually run back,
if it wasn't so for safety means again it would stop the breach from running back,
and the actual breach assembly itself.
Again another critical thing for the loader
was the loader's firing guard.
The loader's firing guard enabled the men that when the gun was actually firing,
because the gun and the recall of the gun the breach would come back quite a long way,
obviously incredibly dangerous if the loader is anywhere else,
so unless the loaders firing guard runners made and the micro switch was activated,
it meant that the main armament couldn't be fired.
And finally across to the left here you've got the BML, the breach mechanism lever,
this is the means that actually opens the breach and also the breach closing lever.