Over the course of this series we have looked at everything from wacky tank concepts to tanks
which were used in active service. Up until now though I have never gone into the world of
fictional tank designs unless they were directly linked to a vehicle I was doing a video on.
Even in the case of the tank concepts which can be argued to be fictional they were still
intended to be used in a combat role. Today’s vehicle of choice is quite the
opposite however with it being intended only as entertainment in the form of a comic series.
Not only that but this tank is truly cursed with it being known as the Haunted tank.
Before we get into the video I want to be honest with all of you watching this.
I have not actually read the entire series of comics which today's tank is from. However this
does not prevent me from being able to look at the tank design within its pages. For the sake of the
vast majority who like myself have not read the comics I will briefly summarize the basic plot.
If you notice any blurring made to portions of the images this is because I don’t want to
take any chances with YouTube and this series does contain both Nazi and Confederate flags.
I dislike having to censor things like that so I will be uploading an uncensored version
to Odysee but I’d rather not have this video blacklisted over something unimportant to the
actual discussion. Anyways, onto the summary. The story of these comics follow the crew of a
Stuart tank under the command of a sergeant named Jeb Stuart. The remainder of the crew is made up
of the childhood friends of Stuart as they begin their fighting in North Africa and eventually the
European theater. Over the course of the series the crew use several different tanks but we’ll
get to those in just a moment. What separates this from any other story of a tank crew is
something that made me have to actually double take when I first read it. A dead Confederate
General who is the ancestor of Jeb Stuart named James Earl Brown Stuart begins haunting the tank
after being sent by the spirit of Alexander the Great. He continues to watch over the crew
although can only communicate with Jeb so the crew is obviously a little weirded out by that fact.
In honor of the ghost protecting his tank though Jeb flies the confederate flag. Their ghostly
protector continues to follow them as they lose several Stuarts eventually constructing the tank
we will be focusing on today known as the “Jigsaw tank”. Later on the crew moves to a Sherman
causing the ghost of William T Sherman to be assigned to the tank with General Stuart
looking on still. This series was actually revived later in 2008 for a short run where
the ghost of General Stuart returns and acts as guardian for a younger Stuart named Jamal
and haunts an M1 Abrams in Afghanistan. The tank even appears in one issue of Batman the Brave and
the Bold where it helps Batman fight Key. Not going to lie I’m pretty upset we haven’t seen a
movie or tv series of this because to me that would be incredible. Unfortunately I get the
feeling that's unlikely to happen due to the inclusion of a Confederate general which would
more than likely just get more backlash than breathing the wrong way on Twitter. Regardless,
I'll definitely have to read through this series when I get the chance because just looking at some
of the cover art it's absolutely wild. As I’m not a film and comic centered channel though
I will save that for another day and instead look at the design of the crew's Jigsaw tank.
Thankfully the comics actually give us a beautiful overview of exactly what this tank is made from
with only some minor things left out. First we can take a look at the design of the vehicle and
then afterwards I think it would be interesting to consider how this vehicle would fare on an
actual battlefield. The hull is from a Russian T-34 modified to have a christie suspension and
a coaxial 20mm cannon. Powering this monstrosity is a 500 HP 12 cylinder Russian V2 12 cylinder
diesel engine allowing the tank a top speed of 21 miles per hour or 33 kilometers per hour.
Unfortunately we aren’t told what the turret comes from so unless it’s mentioned within one
of the comics it seems to just be a made up one. As for the gun though we see that it's
equipped with the 76.2mm cannon as well as the browning .50 on the roof. One thing I noticed
about the design which was possibly overlooked by the original creators of the comic was the
choice to swap the idler and drive sprocket of the T-34. I get the feeling this was more done without
realizing it would require the transmission to be moved along with it but regardless it has a
major impact on the design’s viability. Speaking of which, now that we’ve looked over the design
lets take a deeper dive and consider the real life viability of such a vehicle.
Before we can even discuss the tank itself we need to try and place what part of the war the
vehicle is being used in. This is because a tank that's effective for the battlefield of
say 1940 would be virtually useless for frontline service even just a few years later. Now bear in
mind this is a massive oversimplification but I think you can understand what I’m getting at.
Back to the tank in question we can assume that it's being used at some point during the late war
period as the comics follow the events in North Africa and then Europe meaning it must be after
Operation Torch which happened in late 1942. Looking at the scenery depicted in the first
issue that the Jigsaw Tank appears in I think it's safe to assume we’re looking at a time period of
sometime in 1944 or later. This is also confirmed by the fact that Cromwells appear in the issue. So
what does all this mean for our tank? Surprisingly it actually helps it out considerably.
When I initially was working on this video I was a little confused by how the Americans would wind
up with a T-34 hull but considering it was found in a tank graveyard in Europe rather than Africa
it’s still unlikely but at least plausible. As for the actual specs of the tank although not the best
they are certainly not bad. With a 76mm cannon the tank would be better armed than most allied
tanks at that point allowing it to engage German tanks at greater ranges. For the battlefield of
1944 the T-34 armor of 45mms is a bit lacking but considering the crew was moving up from a Stuart
the armor would still be an improvement. With T-34 85s in the Eastern Front still using the same
armor at that point as well it was obviously still viable for a tank. The mobility is a bit of a
mixed bag for me because the speed the comic gives of 21 miles per hour is considerably slower than
the true top speed of the T-34 which was closer to 32. This could possibly be explained by the
changes to the hull and turret increasing the weight of the tank. Although I’d like
to increase that speed based on the real life facts, since we are reviewing the tank as it's
described to us we’ll have to assume this is the true maximum speed. Despite that, the mobility
of the tank would likely still be acceptable given the power to weight ratio allowing the
tank to accelerate quickly even though the top speed is sub-par. Now that we’ve gone over some
of the good portions of the design I want to move into some of the issues I find with it.
First and foremost is the supposed front mounted transmission. As most of you likely already know
T-34s are not exactly known for their crew comfort but this would only be made worse by cramming a
transmission into the front of the tank. How the 20mm cannon with its gunner and the driver with
all his instruments would fit is beyond me. The next part of the design I am curious about would
be the turret. It almost appears to be a mix of a Chaffee turret and the mantlet from a later model
Sherman. Obviously much of the strange shape can be explained away by the fact that it's a comic
and things are often drawn with wacky proportions; it can't solve the issue of still needing to be
spacious enough for the crew. Again looking at the T-34 85 we see that a larger turret and armament
was possible on the T-34 although I question if the custom turret would be large enough for
the gun to be loaded with at least 2 crew still in the turret. All of these are nitpicks though
when we consider the most major issue with this tank, that being lack of spare parts.
Considering all the factors in the design I think it's safe to say the Jigsaw Tank
would function reasonably well for the real life battlefield in 1944 or 45. However as we can see
from numerous examples, particularly with German tanks, that matters very little if you can’t fix
the tank when it breaks down. By utilizing a Russian built engine this tank is pretty
much just a ticking time bomb waiting to have a breakdown. I suppose it's possible the crew
could rig together some sort of fix given time or use a different engine but this could very quickly
cause more issues with cooling or other parts of the drivetrain. For a temporary solution though,
which this tank obviously is, I see no reason it wouldn’t work other than the aforementioned
transmission placement. Keep in mind that as I haven’t read the full series there could be
things I missed or I could even be wrong about where the tank was assembled originally or even
the time period it was built. If you’re older and remember reading this series back when it
was published though and have corrections please leave a comment below and correct me.
Do you agree with my opinion on this tank? Let me know down in the comments and let me
know what you thought of this video. I would like to possibly do more fake tanks from comics, TV,
movies, and video games similar to this video so if you would like to see that do let me know.
Like I said earlier I’ll have to read through the Haunted Tank series because I’m hooked by
what I read during the research for this video. I by no means expected any of what I read when
I first came across the name of the series when searching for a topic for this video
That's enough for today’s video though, thanks as always to my conelyfans who support the channel
through their YouTube membership and thank you for watching and I’ll see you in the next video.