Sounds very "that's not a knife..." Was it Wolf Jorvik, Crocodile Dundees northern cousin?!

Nobby, I only want Chieftain to make Centurion look even better And give some target practice for T-62 Ofc.

Brilliant!

Does that count as experimental archaeology?

I know a bloke who used drive Chieftains, and I mean professionally.  He has... stories! I'll see if I can get him to refresh my memory.

Just recovered from what was most likely a touch of the latest Covid variant, which knocked me out for a few days. Our daughter has gone down with it and loads of people round here in this part of Bristol affected.

Quote from: Last Hussar on 15 September 2023, 04:50:00 PMI know a bloke who used drive Chieftains, and I mean professionally.  He has... stories! I'll see if I can get him to refresh my memory.

Club mate of mine was a Chieftain driver... he has... vocal... comments... about their performance.

Fortunately he never got shot at in anger in one or I suspect they'd have been comments about their armour as well!

Hi

As an ex-Chieftain driver/gunner/loader-operator (I trianed as a gunner and almost the first thing that I did when joining my regiment in Germany, Ajax, 2RTR, was to be put on a driviing course so that I was able to do all the crew jobs on a Chieftain) I can honestly say that if I had had to go to war in a tank during the time I was in the forces, my first choice would have been in a Chieftain.



Cheers Paul

Friend of mine is exREME, was a an armour fitter.
He has some choice words about why you never move one without its engine in...

Sent the front page photo of the Chieftans to the bloke I mentioned above.

Reply as follows

Quotethis takes me back to when I was a young trooper in the QRIH
Queens Royal Irish hussars , Chieftain tanks where the most unreliable tank the army had since ww2 . They had towards the end of their service a British Leyland bus engine which was under powered . The gearbox was never redesigned for this and both engine and gearbox failed.    FYI   I did an exercise and spent 3 weeks in the REME field garage with 5 other vehicles

Wasn't the problem associated with the multi-fuel engine requirement?

You guys must have envied the Scorpion crews zipping about with their Jag engines.
(Envied; as long as nobody was shooting back).

Saw a Scorpion at the Royal Tournament (yes, that long ago) doing a little combat display. There was a basket on the side with a flashbang in it - someone said that it was in a basket not taped on because they didn't want the armour dented...

Other Chieftain stories

Tank commander said back-up, the driver said are you sure, there is a Chieftain behind. Commander says "Don't worry, I know how much room there is.
Apparently a L11A5 120 mm rifled gun does more damage than you would like to the back of a turret, even when not being fired.

As you know British tanks have black 'hoops' painted on them. The way Kev's unit put these on were to give crew members paint pots of black paint.
As one crew pointed out to a "quite angry" sergeant-major, he never said don't paint the whole tank black...
That particular argument fell flat, and they had to do it again.

Quote from: Last Hussar on 15 September 2023, 12:29:47 PMThat picture I posted - just remembered a story a (then) fellow re-enactor told me about 30 years ago.

He was off to some do, and had to cross London by Tube. The easiest way to carry a mail shirt is to wear it, so he had a coat over the top to hide it.

A mugger pulls a knife on him - guy refuses to be mugged.

Mugger uses knife and slashes coat.

Nothing happens...

Re-enactor put his hand into his bag, and pulls out an axe (I'm guessing Viking-ish) and says "Now it's my turn..."

Mugger runs.

Yes - it's amazing how being in armour can change the entire 'attitude' of those around you.

I did C15th re-enactment back a few years ago (Company St.George & White Company) and we were on an event in the South of France (as you do). We'd been drinking (heavily) in our C15th civilian clothes for most of the late afternoon & evening, in a bar on the sea-front in Nice and had been 'ejected' by the owner for being too rowdy & loud (& probably too British) following a series of complaints from the other customers that we were bringing down the 'tone' of their evening (NB: we were also probably very smelly - it was hot and we'd all been in woollen clothing and under canvas for a few days already).
So the next evening we all went back in our fighting harness (mainly because we thought that we'd try and pull off not being recognized by having our visored sallets pulled down  ). Anyway ... upon arrival the landlord was delighted and asked if we'd put on a 'display' fight. Which (after a few drinks) we did, by faking an argument over a dice game and throwing each other about and out into the street - rolling around in the gutter etc.etc. We ended the evening with free beers and an invite for a repeat performance the next night.
Upon our arrival the next afternoon, we couldn't get into the bar. It was ram packed with people wanting to see us.
By the end of the week, we were 'playing' to such a large crowd that another lot of reenactors (from our own group) was set up - along with various of the women re-enactors - to march down from our camp to arrest us all for disorderly behavior - which (of course) resulted in an even bigger 'fight' in the street - with those of us in the bar being beaten with brushes and sticks by the women and herded shame-faced back to our encampment.
All of which resulted in a couple of cases of wine & beer plus food being brought up to us by the grateful landlord, as a reward.
It's amazing what a bit of shiny armour can achieve 

Did you get the disappointed crowd members who moaned they could still see the "dead" breathing?

We did the Bedford River Festival early 90s, and the start of the display was the Saxons facing off the Vikings, 'nervous' about getting 'killed', while the women members 'screamed' at us to get stuck in and not be cowards!

No matter how bad your life is, remember, you are not Daniel Khalife's solicitor

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/daniel-khalife-pleads-not-guilty-to-escaping-custody-at-hmp-wandsworth/ar-AA1h2JVz

He must be delighted to land that task !