brazil is far from the first nation you
might think of when it comes to tank
design and that is understandable
throughout their history of tank use
much of the equipment has been in the
form of export tanks from other nations
these include the more modern leopards
which still make up their primary tank
force to earlier tanks from a variety of
sources most importantly for today's
topic they would receive the m41 walker
bulldog from the u.s these tanks would
in many ways influence the later designs
from the tomoyo program
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now let's get back to today's main topic
the tomoyu program began somewhere
around early to mid 1979. the project
was partially initiated to combat the
looming threat of the argentinian tam
which started leaving the production
line in the same year but also to take
advantage of brazil's defense industry
to produce a national tank to replace
the x1s and m41 walker bulldogs the
responsibility of the project was given
to the army technology center or ctex
for short they selected the company to
build the vehicle but also handled the
funds ensuring that brazil would get the
biggest bang for their buck to face the
argentinian tams as its main production
partner the ctex selected a company by
the name of bernardini this may seem
like an odd choice for those of you who
watched my previous video on the osorio
produced by njza but let me explain the
context of the brazilian defense
industry a bit further to help
understand why this choice was made the
brazilian defense industry was initiated
by the army in 1968 which then gave the
projects to various brazilian companies
with the wheeled vehicles such as the
kaskavel and urutu going to ingesa and
the tracked vehicles such as the x1
going to bernodini this gentleman's
agreement was done to prevent
competition and would hold from the
early 1970s up to 1982 with the
initiation of the ozodio project by
injesa obviously though companies don't
just get the resources to produce
armored vehicles overnight so let's pump
the brakes a little and talk about the
origin of the bernadini company
bernardini sa indostri kumersi was
founded by italian immigrants in 1912 in
the brazilian state of sao paulo they
manufactured steel safes armored doors
and armored trucks for transporting
valuables in the 1960s bernardini would
come in contact with the armed forces by
building bodies for trucks for both the
brazilian marine corps and the army in
1972 the company was approached by the
army to participate in the development
of the x1 tank from this point on
bernardini would bear the responsibility
of tank development for the brazilian
army contrary to injesa bernardini did
not grow into a massive arms exporter
focusing on domestic contracts and
mainly carrying out projects on request
by the army and then looking for export
options later contrary to the ozorio
which was initiated by angisa from a
business point of view for saudi arabia
the tomoyu program was an army project
meant for brazil specifications for a
new brazilian medium tank were released
in 1979 by the ctex they called for a
new medium tank weighing no more than 30
tons later increased to 36 tons 3.2
meters wide as much park commonality
with the m41 walker bulldog fleet and
the planned domestic m113 replacement
known as the chihuahua as possible a 105
millimeter gun for the army and 120
millimeter for export with stabilization
day night sights and a good power to
weight ratio among other things needless
to say these requirements were
readjusted quite heavily to match the
brazilian reality the initial program
was influenced by many vehicles of which
the most notable are the tam which was
offered to brazil by the germans around
1976 to 1977 the m41b which was a walker
bulldog modernization project to install
a new diesel engine and improve
suspension among other notable changes
and the x1a2 the only fully designed and
serially produced tank by brazil to
enter military service the latter of
these influences were projects carried
out by bernardini the first concept
definitely shows the tam influence as
the ctex requested a front-mounted
engine the concept was designated x30
with the x for prototype and the 30 for
its planned weight this vehicle was then
presented in a newspaper on may 27 1979
in just six months though this layout
was discarded in favor of a more
traditional layout the first sketch of
this design was then presented in
january 1980 in jane's international
defense review the new concept showed a
hybrid design between the previous x1a2
and m41b projects of bernardini using
the x1a2 turret in a lengthened m41b
hull these sketches and further
development culminated in the x30
full-scale mockup which used the
suspension of an m41b but with an extra
road wheel a 76 millimeter gun with the
muzzle break of the tomoyo ones 90
millimeter gun and all in all resembled
how the new tank would look before we go
further in the tamoya program it is
important to get a popular misconception
out of the way the tomoyu's were not
converted from the m41 walker bulldog
but completely new designs using many
components from the m41 due to army
requirements for interchangeability the
hull and turret were better armored and
its firepower was increased over the m41
although the initial two variants known
as the tamoya 1 and 2 could be seen as
domestically designed improved m41s the
apex of the tomoyu project known as the
tomoyu 3 was a beast of its own sporting
a
millimeter gun composite armor and
decent mobility the tomoyu 3 shared few
components with the m41 or its
predecessors and was brazil's second
domestic main battle tank after the
azoreo it is important to note that the
tomoyu 1 and 2 projects were funded by
the army while the tomoyu 3 was a
project of the company itself and as
such did not receive army funding the
brazilian army eventually realized it
would not be able to afford a tank at
the time with a 105 millimeter gun
luckily for them in parallel to the
development of the tomoyu bernardini had
also initiated the development of the
m41c
this design used a reborn low pressure
90 millimeter gun and additional spaced
armor being an overall upgrade to the
m41b allowing the army to retain the
vehicle in service longer the next
important step in the development of the
tomoyu was the acquisition of the 90
millimeter f4 high velocity gun which
can be found in the french erc 90. the
90 millimeter f4 was installed in a
single m41c to serve as a test bed and
was subsequently copied by bernardini
for the tomoyu project designated as the
can 90 millimeter
76-90 m32 br3 in addition to meet the
interchangeability requirements of the
army bernardini was forced to use the
same cd 503 transmission the same
suspension and a scania dsi 14
supercharged intercooled 500 horsepower
diesel engine which were all used in
some way on the m41b and the future m41c
modernizations of brazil it is important
to note that the suspension of the m41b
and m41c were made of improved materials
over the original suspension and that
the engines of those two vehicles used a
different cooling method this
interchangeability requirement
effectively cursed the tomoyu 1 from the
start of the project where the m41s had
a power to weight ratio of 21 horsepower
per ton the tomoyu-1 only had 16.6
something which would come to haunt the
vehicle later as it weighed around 6
tons more than the m41 despite using the
same drivetrain still a contract for the
production of eight vehicles was signed
on march 27 1984 with the army securing
funding for the project the contract
included four tamoyu ones a tomoyu ii
and three engineering vehicles of which
nearly nothing is known and were never
actually built bernardini finished its
first working prototype on may 7 1984
which received the designation mb3 to
moyu with mb standing for medio
bernardini or medium bernardini tomoyu
stood for the tomoyu confederation an
alliance of indigenous populations who
attempted to resist the portuguese
colonization of brazil in a last attempt
but were ultimately defeated by the
colonists the tomoyu-1 was trialled
successfully by the army which began two
days after the completion of the first
vehicle at the time testing was
beginning on these early prototypes an
accident would occur involving a tank in
a ford coursel the car was crushed by an
armored vehicle killing two of the three
inside and leaving the other injured
despite this being attributed to the
tomoyu in more recent years due to the
vehicle being driven by a bernardini
employee i was able to debunk this rumor
by finding this photo from the original
report about the accident although very
low quality we can make out the shape of
the standard m41 rear unlike the more
boxy rear of the later vehicles so
although this event is still a tragedy
for those involved we can now at least
point towards the more likely culprit of
either an m41b or m41c
back to the story of the tomoyu 1
bernardini wanted to provide an
alternative with a more modern
transmission which would be designated
as the tomoyu 2. the tomoyu 2 was
effectively nothing more than a tomoyu-1
with an hmpt 503 transmission which
provided a modern alternative for the
cd500 the army was convinced to fund the
tomoyu 2 as well and the vehicle
eventually served as a brief mock-up for
the tomoyu3 turret by 1986 however
everything changed for the tomoyu
project and bernardini as the army test
drove the ozodio in official trials
although developed specifically for
saudi arabia in 1982 and jaisa ended up
with a vehicle which outperformed the
tomoyu 1 in every aspect except price
the ozodio impressed the brazilian army
so much that they seemed to have
forgotten about their initial
requirements for interchangeability this
decision effectively meant that the army
lost interest in the tomoyu project
which they had initiated which was
taylor made two brazilian requirements
and decided to go with the ozodio this
seems to be reinforced by the fact that
the tomoyu-1 was only retrialed in 1988
considering various tomoyu's like the
tomoyu 2 and the exports my3 were
already finished around 1986-1987
this date seems to be quite late flavio
bernardini the ex-ceo of bernardini
noted in a memoir that the tomoyu
program was empohando kom abahiga
meaning pushed with the belly which is a
saying suggesting that the army seems to
have somewhat deliberately postponed the
trials the second tomoyu-1 prototype was
trialled by the army in 1988 and
subsequently rejected the tamoyu-1 was
not fast enough and the power to weight
ratio was too low due to the
transmission which for
interchangeability reasons was not being
able to take a higher horsepower engine
in addition the oil filter was damaged
and the gearbox was damaged due to
cracking near the fixation points in
response to the lacking power to weight
ratio bernardini started disassembling
their third tomoyu 1 vehicle with the
hopes to turn it into a variant known as
the tomoyu 4 which was to use an
unspecified zf transmission and mwm
engine although the tamoyu was
disassembled bernardini never got around
to building their tomoyu 4 as the
program was cancelled before they could
begin what is interesting about the 1988
trials is that the army did not test the
apex of the tomoyu program the tomoyu 3
despite it being completed a year prior
using a low recoil 105 millimeter l7 a
ferranti falcon fire control system
composite and spaced armor a cd 850
transmission and a 736 horsepower
detroit 8v 92 ta diesel engine which
could potentially get a horsepower
increase to 900 horsepower unlike its
older siblings the tomoyu 3 was a tank
of its own and a true main battle tank
in south america the tamoyu 3 came in at
31 tons 2 tons heavier than the tomoyu-1
and mounted a fairly unsophisticated
looking turret this simple turret design
was due to the fact that bernardini did
not have enough experience with
composite materials at the time and as
such the turret we see on the tomoyu 3
today was not meant to be the final
design
still the turret was stabilized used
electric drives had thermal vision and
compartmentalized ammunition for the
turret similar to that found on the
abrams this consisted of a simple blast
door which could be opened and closed by
the loader and a thinner plate on the
turret top which was intended to fail in
the event of an ammo cook-off rather
than the blast being contained in the
turret the front side of the vehicle is
said to have been protected by 300
millimeters of los thick composite armor
although the makeup and effectiveness
still remain a mystery the ferranti
falcon fire control system was not the
greatest though and performance wise can
be compared to a challenger one however
with the new drive train the tank was
able to reach a top speed of 65
kilometers an hour and had a 23.7
horsepower to ton ratio combat loaded
the tomoyu 3 was finally considered by
the army in april 1991 following the
failure of the azodio program despite
its biggest rival gone the tomoyu 3 was
still met with stiff opposition since
the suspension radios and the 2 7.62
machine guns were the only components
that were interchangeable with other
army vehicles a significant part of the
army wanted the program to be closed and
the costs of the evaluation be
shouldered by bernardini as they
classified the tank as a foreign vehicle
this seems a bit odd considering they
did not mind this when it came to the
osorio in the end brazil would not
pursue the tomoyu 3 deciding not to
accept it for trials
on july 24th 1991 the tomoyu project was
officially cancelled by the army and the
last possibility of brazil obtaining a
domestic mbt with it the entire
development of the tamoya 1 and 2 came
down to 9.5 million us dollars with the
tomoyu 3 program costing an additional
4.4 million us dollars of which 2.4
million was spent on development and the
remaining two million on the
construction of the prototype of the
seven vehicles built into the tomoyu
program five still remain to this day
the x30 mockup is preserved at the ctex
in rio de janeiro a tomoyu-1 is thought
to have gone to ctx as well a
half-finished fourth tomoyu-1 prototype
remains at the ipd in rio de janeiro
with another tomoyu 1 preserved at the
cibld which is the armor school of
brazil unlike its siblings the tomoyu 3
prototype is currently owned by a
private collector interestingly the
tomoyu-1 the cibid was recently
partially restored along with the ozodio
although this was only to get them into
drivable condition it is likely that the
tomoyu 1 was repaired to be presented
during the 200 years of independence
celebration in the september 7th
independence day parade this year the
tomoyu 3 is also said to be in running
condition in the end it seems that
despite the funding put into the tomoyu
program the ozorio changed the army's
outlook on a new tank altogether and for
a good reason as well unfortunately it
also seems to have had the effect the
army put all its eggs in the ozodio
basket and did not consider the tamoyu 3
until the ozorio had failed at that
point when the tomoyu 3 was considered
for testing brazil found itself in the
middle of a financial crisis which had
begun in the mid-1980s and only started
to recover in 1994 by the time the
crisis ended the market was flooded with
cheap cold war surplus equipment
effectively rendering any hope for a
tomoyu revival moot bernardini met its
fate in 2001 when it closed its doors
for good being the last brazilian
defense company which had the know-how
and experience in building tanks so what
do you think about the story of the
tomoyu program was it a tragic case of
wrong place wrong time or was there a
good reason this vehicle failed let me
know in the comments special thanks to
darren hayes from the tank encyclopedia
team for his help on this video and
gathering most of the information within
it shout out as always to my channel
members who have continued to support
this channel especially during this
portion of the year when ad revenue
tends to be fairly low one last thanks
to conflict of nations for sponsoring me
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below if you want to try the game
yourself with some free goodies i'll see
you all in the next video