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Tank causes chaos at Bovington


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its funny this one, everyone (including me) seems to know someone who was there, as its became more of a must see event.

 

One bloke at my old unit ( the gunnery instructor) told me he witnessed it and that some officer had got in (which sounds feasable) and started it up put it straight into gear and he was off, problem was the hand throttle was tightened full on and he flapped.

 

Someone else who was on the top when it happened reached in to the drivers hatch and turned off the master switch and stopped it (eventually).

 

These stories always get embelished over time, and i dont know how much of what he said was the real truth.

 

Mind when I was there I witnessed a crew take a Chally 1 past a load of skitish officers horses being taken for a walk at full throttle, the next thing there was stable girls being dragged through hedges and over roads whilst hanging on for dear life whilst the six or so horses scattered.

 

Bet somebody was tapping the boards for that one

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True story was that tank arrived on a low loader, unknown condition but runnable. Late in the day, keen to put everything behind the wire. As it was put into reverse to manoeuvre, the clutch operating mechanism snapped. 36 litre deisels do not stall easily and the brakes on a T 34/54/54 are not good in reverse (trailing shoes in reverse) and the engine overpowered the brakes and could not be stopped despite full foot brake application. Electrical master switch has no effect upon a deisel engine of course. Unfortunately, drive plus brake load locks the straight cut gearbox cogs so it would not come out of gear either. Solution was counter intuitive, release brakes first then slide gearchange into neutral but driver did do that and tank stopped. I think engine was stalled against top gear to stop it. Very very lucky no one was hurt, bent metal only but no one to blame, just one of those things.

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  • 1 year later...
  • 3 months later...

Mind when I was there I witnessed a crew take a Chally 1 past a load of skitish officers horses being taken for a walk at full throttle, the next thing there was stable girls being dragged through hedges and over roads whilst hanging on for dear life whilst the six or so horses scattered.

 

Bet somebody was tapping the boards for that one

Funnyly enough a good solid sound horse that dosen't spook is still decribed as 'Bomb' or 'Tank Proof'. I did have one horse Blondie, who was litterally tank proof. I was riding him at the gallop through the Savenake Forest, spun round a corner to meet a Fox CVR(W) coming the other way. Driver stopped dead, horse stopped dead, I proceded on my way to end up hanging on the gun barrel!

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  • 4 weeks later...

I coldn't help putting in my "2 cents" to this thread. I frequently operate russian tanks such as T-34 / 54 / 55, and by far the most reliable way to make them stop is pulling steering levers all the way back. This action cuts the powerline to drivesprockets and connects the steering brakes. The brakepedal, with russian tanks, should only be considered as a way to slow down the speed of tank, not stopping it. If you can steer it, you can stop it.

In this case, it seems as if the person driving the tank had no experience of russian tanks.

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I feel pretty sorry for the guy in it, I bet he was never the same again! loosing control of something like a t54 would be pretty terrifying, especially when its going backwards so you can't even see what/who your about to destroy!

 

The guy driving was one of the nicest, most gentle guys you could hope to meet. There was a dog in one of the cars I understand but I think it was intially reported to be a baby. The shock of that was not greatly relieved by finding out the blood was "only" a dog and I think he left the Museum very shortly afterwards.

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I coldn't help putting in my "2 cents" to this thread. I frequently operate russian tanks such as T-34 / 54 / 55, and by far the most reliable way to make them stop is pulling steering levers all the way back. This action cuts the powerline to drivesprockets and connects the steering brakes. The brakepedal, with russian tanks, should only be considered as a way to slow down the speed of tank, not stopping it. If you can steer it, you can stop it.

In this case, it seems as if the person driving the tank had no experience of russian tanks.

 

The point you are missing is that "something broke", or more accurately I think, came adrift. Where did the adrift item fall and what did it jam? I can confirm that the driver was fully skilled in driving all types of tank, including Russian but all his experience related to whole, functioning vehicles! Fact is, despite the mechanical problems he was clear headed enough to work out how to stop it even in its disabled state after a few seconds. Had it stopped about ten yards sooner, this seemingly endlessly repeated video would never have been filmed of course.

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John, i had no intention to doubt drivers skills. Surely he was an experienced tanker, Bovington personnel are among most skillful professionals in their alley.

I myself have had a clutch failure driving a T-34. The release bearing failed causing gear jamming. Since the mainclutch was out, i stopped the tank by pulling back steering levers that open differential clutches and connect brakes. The controls in T-54 / 55 are basically identical with T-34, although a bit more sophisticated. So, it just seems unbelievable, that all those controls, mainclutch, differential clutch, steering brakes and fuelpump offswitchlever linkage, failed at same time. All those controls are operated independently with eachother.

So once more, no disrespect towards the driver, i hope this incident didn't cause him to give up his passion towards tanks. And bottom line, he DID stop the tank and no one got hurt.

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