Congratulations soldier, you've just been picked to be part of a four-man crew on an
American Abrams Main Battle Tank.
That's right, you'll officially be on board one of the most powerful machines on earth,
a tank so tough that none have ever- in its entire lifetime- been destroyed by enemy fire.
You may be a total badass on the battlefield, but buckle up buttercup, because you're about
to find out why life inside a tank sucks.
Like tight spaces?
We sure hope you do, because the first thing you're going to notice about life inside a
tank is that there's not much room to move around.
The total area for a crew inside a tank is only a few square feet, and that's because
as you begin your new life as a tanker you very quickly realize that the machine comes
well before the humans.
After all, a modern battle tank can easily level an entire neighborhood block, while
you probably struggle to fight your way out of a wet paper bag.
Hopefully you're not claustrophobic, because not only is the interior of a tank an extremely
tight squeeze, but it gets even worse when the tank is fully buttoned down- and that's
going to be most of the time.
Until scientists figure out how to make humans obsolete, a tank is only as functional as
its soft, squishy human crew, so anytime you're cruising around your big bad battle mobile,
you can be certain that you're going to be locked down and buttoned up tighter than Fort
Knox.
Nearly every modern battle tank can operate inside a nuclear, chemical, or biological
environment, meaning that when these things seal up, we mean it.
Hope you like that air you're breathing, because you're going to be breathing it in over and
over again for hours- potentially even up to two days straight.
Scrubbers in the air filtration system will keep you from suffocating on your own carbon
dioxide, but, well, they don't work quite as well on other things- like smells.
Go ahead and take a quick whiff under your armpit right now, then go ahead and close
your eyes and imagine how bad you might stink after spending an entire day buttoned up in
an airtight tank.
Sure, modern tanks have air conditioning, but when it comes to a very long list of priority
equipment and systems to keep well maintained and repaired, the AC comes in dead last.
If you happen to have the luck of serving in a warm tropical, or scorching hot desert
environment, then you'll very soon understand what it feels like for cookies every time
you stick them in an oven.
Huffing down your own funk is bad enough, but with an up to four-man crew, you're going
to have to get used to the particular flavors of your crewmates.
For a good approximation of what this is like, next time you're around a sweaty friend, go
ahead and stick your face in their armpit, and then take in several deep huffs of air.
Hold it in, really savor the sweat stank coursing down your esophagus and saturating your lungs
with their salty stink.
Let the vapors linger as they work their way back up your respiratory system and come up
the back of your throat and into your mouth.
Yeah, that's what living in a tank with three other guys is like.
But as you check out the digs in your new battle ride, you might notice that there seem
to be several critical amenities missing.
You might pay upwards of $3,000 a month for the same square footage apartment in New York
City or San Francisco, but at least those places will come with a bathroom.
Inside a modern tank the only bathroom that exists is... well, the one you invent for
yourself.
Gotta pee?
Old gatorade bottle will do in a pinch- just don't confuse it with, you know, your actual
gatorade.
Gotta go number two though?
Well, there's a reason your crew commander warned you to save the plastic bag your MRE
came in.
That's right, even after one hundred years of tank technological improvements and innovations,
the best technique for taking a deuce in a modern tank is the age-old tradition of pooping
in a bag.
A modern tank may be the 70 ton embodiment of God's vengeful wrath on a sinful world,
but while you're stuck in it you're still pooping in your sandwich baggie.
Forget about hopping out so you can pinch a loaf off real quick from the side of the
tank, tanks operate on the most dangerous battlefields on earth- and that means that
the life expectancy of a tank crewman outside of his actual tank is vanishingly short.
When you're living in a tank, you're gonna be squatting your grumps in the tank, not
outside of it.
For our more astute viewers, this has likely already led to the question on many of your
minds- what happens after you're done laying wolf bait?
Like, what happens to it?
Well, modern tanks are thankfully equipped with a trash incineration device that instantly
disintegrates whatever trash the crew generates and- ha, just kidding.
That's right, over one hundred years of tank design and still the best solution to what
happens after someone takes the Browns to the superbowl is to simply stow it away.
That's tank speak for you're hanging on to your poop until it's safe to actually exit
the vehicle.
Hopefully your pop receptacle is air tight- but since you'll be using plastic sandwich
baggies or plastic MRE bags, then it most definitely won't be.
At least try to tie a tight knot onto it, and not repeat the unfortunate disaster aboard
Apollo 10 when one of the astronaut's hersey's kisses started floating around the cabin.
With all the shaking and banging a tank does as it moves around the countryside though,
odds are eventually you're gonna have a loose turd rolling around.
Marinating in the smells of your crew's poop, urine, and sweat though is only some of the
perks of getting to drive around the most powerful machines on earth, because the other
perk is occasional and extremely excruciatingly painful injuries.
As we've mentioned, the actual human crew is more an afterthought for many tank designs,
and in tanks like the German Leopard 2 it's all too easy for the crew to get seriously
injured, if not killed, by their own machines.
One German tanker was once caught in the machinery of the turret and had his femur snapped cleanly
in two, though broken arms, fingers, and even legs are not uncommon injuries for tankers.
We seriously cannot overstate just how much you don't want to be in the way of a 70 ton
murder machine.
At least though you'll get to make big bangs driving your tank around, and every time that
big main cannon fires off you can expect the cabin to fill up with cordite from the fired
round.
You can add that one to your laundry list of savory aromas you'll get to enjoy in your
life inside a tank.
Listen, there's one obvious perk to life inside a tank though, and that's mainly the fact
that if you happen to be riding inside an American Abrams or British Challenger, there's
really not much on the modern battlefield that's going to be anything more than a pesky
annoyance.
Small arms fire?
Kick your feet up as you enjoy the tin-roof like sound of high caliber rounds plinking
off your thick armor plating.
RPGs, those are cute- bet they would tickle a little if one hit you.
They certainly tickled an American Abrams that took over 52 RPGs in one day and only
suffered a thrown track.
IEDs?
Well, unless the IED is the size of a... well, a tank, then it's not going to do much but
maybe scuff the paint.
You might be feeling invulnerable, but you're also going to be a pretty priority target
on any battlefield, and while anything we've discussed isn't going to do much but annoy
you, there's plenty of weapons out there that can seriously crap your day up.
You can be sure that if you're facing a modern, or even close-to-modern foe, then you're going
to have everything from bonafide anti-tank missiles to other tanks trying to knock you
out of the fight.
And while your thick armor may protect you from most things sent your way, even a hit
that doesn't penetrate the armor can be deadly to the crew inside.
That's thanks to spalling, or when a hit is absorbed by the tank's armor, but the energy
actually causes the inside of the armor to fracture and fire off shards of razor sharp
metal inside the crew compartment.
You really don't want to get in the way of a three inch shard of sharp metal traveling
a few dozen feet per second any more than you want to get your arms or legs in the way
of any of the moving machinery inside the tank.
Then there's the fact that any round that actually manages to penetrate the interior
of a tank... well, it's not going to be particularly survivable for the crew.
A fighter pilot can still eject if his plane is hit by a missile or gunfire, and even soldiers
in a Humvee can be completely unharmed or just dazed if they roll over an IED.
But if an anti-tank round hits your tank and penetrates, well, that kind of stuff is just
simply not survivable.
Humans are just too squishy.
A high explosive round for instance may not be particularly effective against modern tanks
thanks to modern armor, but if you're caught with your head out of the turret when it goes
off, it's going to basically ruin your day by taking your head clean off.
A high explosive squash head round on the other hand is going to very much ruin your
day if you're sitting inside your tank, these rounds create a large surface explosion on
the outside of the tank which causes the metal armor on the inside to shatter and spall,
showering the crew with high speed shrapnel.
The use of spaced armor has made these rounds less effective, but still a danger.
If you come under fire from an armor piercing discarding sabot round however, you better
hope your armor is up to manufacturer's specifications, because if not it's going to be your last
day on earth.
These rounds use no explosives, and instead fire a very thin needle-like projectile which
penetrates through layers of tank armor.
By the time the penetrator makes it to the interior of the tank it's been fractured so
badly that it turns into a deadly high-speed shower of razor sharp shrapnel.
If you're on the business end of a depleted uranium round such as those used by American
tanks, then we hope you've got a solid last will and testament, because no known tank
on earth has survived a hit from one of these bad boys.
Lastly you've got high explosive anti-tank rounds to concern yourself with, which like
to mix things up by providing a fun party mix of high-speed kinetic penetrator death
along with high explosives.
If the kinetic projectile that punches through your armor doesn't kill you, then the searing
hot explosion that follows it certainly will.
And if you happen to be running around with your own ammunition exposed, then you can
be sure that the sudden rise in temperature to several hundred degrees will cause your
ammo to cook off, further adding to the explosive death fun.
At least it'll be quick.
With the threat of instant death, absolutely zero leg room, and the joy of marinating in
the poop smells of a four-man crew, you might be wondering who exactly would even want to
serve as a tanker anyways?
Well, sure, they're uncomfortable, dangerous, and a priority target on any battlefield,
but they're also pretty much the most badass machines mankind has ever made, and that in
itself is a compelling argument for putting up with pooping inside a bag for days on end.
A modern tank is after all, the literal embodiment of the wrath of a vengeful god on a sinful
world, and short of another, even better tank, or perhaps serious air support, there's not
much that's going to stop your rampage across a battlefield.
And definitely not things as flimsy as 'buildings' or 'walls'.
But a thrown track definitely will, and despite how tough modern tank armor is, the truth
is tank treads might as well be made of egg shells for how often they get damaged or thrown.
Even just taking a turn too sharp is enough for a tank to throw a track, and in that case
you can look forward to the fun of having to lift hundreds of pounds of metal tracks
with just you and your crew mates as you desperately try to fix your busted tracks so your giant
murder machine can actually move.
But hey, at least then you could poop outside the tank for a change.
Sick of tanks?
Why not learn about why living on a submarine sucks by clicking this video here.
Or perhaps you'd prefer this other video instead.
Either way click one now and keep this watch party going!