waggy

H The bag charge bins did indeed have glass fibre jackets around them which were charged at pressure with coolant, very handy for keeping yer Paderborner pils cool on exercise ;-) As regards the vent tubes, Chieftain main armament ammo was in two pieces, the projectile and the charge. This cuts down on turret clutter as there is no brass case to dispose of as the charge incinerates totally in the breech. The bag charge needs igniting and the easiest and safest method at the time was by using a vent tube which in effect is an electrically fired ballistite brass cartridge. This ignites the primer pad at the rear of the bag charge which in turn ignites the cordite propellant, the resulting explosion propelling the projectile down the barrel etc.... The vent tubes were held in a magazine at the rear of and underneath the breech ring. The main draw back in the early marks was that each vent tube had to be manually rammed utilising the vent tube loader and in the correct loading sequence for each round fired. They were also prone to not 'firing' due to electrical failure or, very rarely, faulty manufacture. Regards Graham

Matt Typically for the army at most overseas bases, not counting BAOR, the majority of vehicles were CAST and sold or scrapped locally when they had come to the end of their service life. I heard a few stories from some of the older hands in my Regiment that when we left Aden in the 60's lots of the vehicles, including Ferrets and Saladins, were ditched in the Gulf?! I'll have a look through my photo collection and see if I can find anymore FSC's. Regards Graham

Hi Matt, Yep thats my vid. Dunno if this is any use for your FSC database but this is a photo taken while I was in Cyprus 1975. We were the UN Force Reserve and had a Squadron of MKII Ferrets. The MkI in the photo was the Squadron HQ vehicle, registration 34BA78. Regards Graham

Hello mate, when did your dad serve? Please feel free to pm me if you don't want to disclose details here.

G'day one and all. I found this site because a lot of people from it have been viewing one of my videos on youtube recently. I have never restored any military vehicles but do have an interest in military history. I spent nearly 15 years (1972-1987) in the army, 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards, crewing Chieftains and Scimitars. I still work for the MoD and regularly 'bump' into Chieftain hulks dotted around various training areas throughout the UK which I find quite sad, having crewed and commanded them at their peak. Regards Graham

A popular story that did the rounds in Cavalry/Tank Regiments serving in West Germany in the mid 70s was of a MkII Chieftain that got bogged in the Swinderbeck river on Soltau training area. The tank eventually became totally submerged in mud and was unrecoverable and it is alledgely still there. I have also heard another story relating to this same incident claiming that the driver died in the incident? I know from my own experiences of this river that it is totally plausible as a Troop Sergeants tank in my Squadron whilst on Troop training got bogged but was eventually recovered by three Centurion ARV's. All hail the Reccy mech!

Glad you like my vid. As regards reliability of Chieftain, I'm no expert by any means but I did spend 12 years on them crewing all positions ending up as a Crew commander Chieftain. The biggest problem with the early marks was the L60 power pack. The main fault was the main engine liners failing allowing the oil to mix with the coolant, this was normally preceeded by the Chieftain trade mark plumes of white smoke billowing from the exhausts and rear decks and a sweet sickly smell! In the late 70's the L60 underwent a series of major base workshop upgrades to eliminate this. The DB TN12 gear boxes had their moments but were fairly reliable. The main problem with the Gun Control Equipmenmt (GCE) was burn out of the metadines. As MBTs go when it was running smoothly it was, as has been noted historically, the best of its kind during the Cold War and was the first to successfully combine the holy trinity of tank design, Firepower, Mobility and Protection. It's firepower could not be equalled on a tank on tank kill ratio.