Tank Chats #34 Chieftain | The Tank Museum

Best Cheiftan quote ever: "this tank is an absolute battle-winner... as long as it breaks down in a good fire position"

I used to drive these when I was in the army in Germany. We used to traverse the gun over the back decks and slightly elevate the gun,place a tarpaulin sheet over the barrel and sleep on the decking. This was done when we were on exercise in mid winter in Germany. The engine took around 24 hours to go cold...It kept you nice and warm.

My dad was an officer in the Iranian royal army (a tank commander) before the bloody revolution, and he went to war against Iraq. Lost his life during early times of war inside one of these tanks (one of the biggest tank battles) and sill MIA after 42 years. Thanks for the nice explanation :)

"The engine was the thing that let Chieftan down". As soon as you said that, the video shows the infamous Leyland logo. I think most people who, like me, grew up in the seventies will have either laughed or winced when they saw that logo here.

I had the “pleasure” of working on these from 1970 through 1975, on and off. I drove an FV434 so ran from one pack lift to the next. Interesting point. Many years later, I worked as a civil servant at a facility and a transporter came in with trailer problems. They sought me out as no one knew how to operate the Chieftain on the trailer. I unloaded it and spent most of the day giving rides to the staff! Great time!

Shame no mention at the end of the Battle of the Bridges (Al Jahra) in 1990. Arguably Chieftain's finest moment.

Always wanted to know more about this tank, thanks for sharing your knowledge!

Very enjoyable watch!

I had a small metal Chieftain tank when I was a kid back in the 70's. I LOVED that tank!

"Leyland worked on it" - the one thing you never want to hear about a vehicle

A beautiful machine! I always found almost all British tanks to be just so stylish, it's like they are the gentelmen of tanks, all dressed up and ready to go, hat, umbrella and suit :)

Here is a list of British tank which have a name beginning with C: Covenanter, Crusader, Cavalier, Centaur, Cromwell, Challenger, Churchill, Comet, Centurion, Conqueror, Chieftain, Challenger 1, Challenger 2 Kind of interesting... Great video!

“Many people criticise the Chieftain, but you won’t find many that would want to fight it.”

Thank you for not adding useless music to that video! It's behind me why some people put music on top of someone talking in some other videos.

Remember years back reading a book written by one of NATO's top general's. Can't remember the books name, it was written in 85 and I read it probably 15-20 years back. But it talked about how the Soviets put their best tanks and most experienced troop's up against the British sector and intel told them how much they feared the Chieftain especially it's firepower. Can't remember all the details, and I'm not British so no bias. I'm Canadian, I also liked how this general also mentioned the small, but extremely well trained Canadian contingent. Just a touch of pride in my country's extremely capable soldiers. Wish our politicians would support them more now a days though.

I worked at BSC in Sheffield in the early 70s where the turrets were cast, I’ve often thought that the soldiers sat inside never saw the turrets after crack detection, we used to chip and grind the cracks out some were inches deep, then weld up and make good. Sometimes the army would bring a turret in that had been shot at, we would weld it up and send it back.

At 5.20 - The Muzzel Refrence System had nothing to do with any 'bend' in the barrel due to wind. (that was mitigated by the thermal sleeve you see on the barrel) it was purely an instantly available means of quickly realigning the sights graticule pattern to the origional boresighting done previously. During live firing we would do a quick MRS check every few rounds during a lull in firing. (align the depresion indicators, look through the sight, adjust the MBS mark back on to the orange MRS light, lock back up the graticule adjusters, and bob's yer uncle) It took about 20 seconds to do it. Every time a round was fired it would put the sight/barrel alignment out by a small amount.

the other case in which the Chieftain had to fire its gun in anger was the opening stages of the invasion of Kuwait: by all accounts, the Kuwaiti 35th Brigade (which was only able to field a total of 36 Chieftains, 26 with the 7th bat, 3 Coy, and 10 with the 8th bat, 3 Coy--backed by a handful of BMP-2s, M-113s, M901ITVs from the AT company, and 7 M109A2 SPGs) was able to check the 1st Republican Guard Mech and 2nd Republican Guard armored for most of the day on August 2nd. yes, the Kuwaitis fled in the end...but it doesn't negate the fact 36 tanks held elements a full tank and mechanized division at bay for longer than they had any right to.

I was born in 1956 and trained as an infantry officer. So these were the tanks that supported us. One story I heard was that Leyland ran a Chieftain engine for so many hours. Changed the engine oil, put the dirty oil in the fuel tank and started it up again. They would run on anything.

Drove one of these on my 30th birthday, absolutely awesome!