Tank Chats #145 | Conqueror | The Tank Museum

When you’re worried about the silhouette of the tank so you decide to just make it so large the enemy thinks it’s a local mountain range.

"... The M103. We've got one of those here somewhere..." The humblest of humbleflexes.

"originally suggested by... whatsisname... Montgomery!" I love David Fletcher!

The photo of the crew at 14:18, the far right soldier is my grandad. He has some amazing stories of his time in the conqueror.

A 60t tank with a 120mm gun, hunter-killer target selections for the Tank Commander. Plaster it with some more acronyms and it'd sound like its from a more recent time.

“Extra shells could be handed to the gunner by the driver if he had nothing else to do, all he had to do was drive the tank” I so look forward to each and every video featuring our beloved Mr. Fletcher.

I drove a mk2 Conq for some 2 years, on changing gears you pulled back one of the steering tillers as you dipped your clutch and changed gear sharpish, pulling the tiller stopped the gearbox for a fraction of a second allowing you to change up not down, changing down was the old double de clutch method it was an art driving the old tanks, todays tanks are a lot easier.

The independent rotation of the commander turret is amazing

My word, it’s putting it mildly to call this thing a veritable behemoth.

THANKYOU for not interrupting David Fletcher's story-telling flow with 'energetic self promotion' half-way through, as with previous videos. Of course you're a business, but just letting David regale his encyclopedic recollections about tanks unabated does wonders for the enjoyability of your output.

That thing is so massive it makes our dear presenter look like a Toy David! 😊

Fascinating, as always. Also, I really appreciate that you decided not to interrupt your videos any more right on the middle.

"He was only driving the tank after all" God bless David Fletcher! His comments about an experienced driver are right on point. When I was a gunner, having a driver that knew what he was doing and could keep us riding smooth as the TC or I were about to fire was worth his weight in gold. I hated when we'd have to break up an experienced crew due to promotions or reassignments. (There's a good reason I never had a "D" as part of my radio call sign. I could get us where we needed to go, but never got that perfect feel for driving.)

"Was coined by - what's his name... Field Marshal Montgomery..." I know what you did there and it was savage.

Jesus, I've never appreciated exactly how big the Conqueror is!

I used to love watching these when I was a kid in the early '50's. The whole ground shook and as David says the noise was tremendous. My dad used to say you could hear them miles away out on Sennelager plains.

An old pub regular of mine, Mike Boyle, said he was one of the first people trained on the Conqueror as it was coming into service. I seem to remember him mentioning doing some sort of testing where he was part of a crew that stayed in their tank, hatches sealed, for over a week in order to simulate living conditions and the ability to continue fighting if there was a nuclear blast close to the front line (which the tank would survive). He also said he was one of the tank commanders in the Beatles film HELP! Great man.

I know David isn't tall, but that Conqueror tank is huge. As for the American M103, I once marched behind a couple of them during a parade. It too is massive.

That turret is so big it has its own turret.

I swear David could just talk about how to plug in your vacuum cleaner and i would be interested