00:00 [MACHINERY RUMBLING]
00:03 Some machines may not have a 0 to 60 in under 10 seconds,
00:21 or a 0 to 60 ever.
00:23 That's why we're in Minnesota to learn how to drive a tank.
00:26 And not just any tank.
00:28 We have a Sherman tank.
00:29 We have a Chieftain tank.
00:31 We have an armored personnel carrier.
00:33 We have an Abbott tank, which technically we know
00:35 is not a tank.
00:35 But we're going to call it a tank today.
00:37 Now, tanks don't necessarily have the same weight
00:39 they do on the battlefield today as they did 50 years ago.
00:43 But that doesn't mean they're not extremely powerful.
00:45 And I'm about to learn how easy or difficult to drive.
00:48 [MACHINERY RUMBLING]
00:51 Before you can drive a tank, you have to get into it.
00:58 These things were made for people
01:00 of much smaller stature.
01:02 You've got to remember that most people that
01:04 drove tanks during World War II were young men.
01:07 I'm not.
01:08 Once you're in a tank, it's very similar to a car in the fact
01:11 that you will have an accelerator pedal
01:13 and sometimes a clutch.
01:14 Tanks don't have steering wheels.
01:16 What they have are two levers.
01:17 One controls the right track, and one controls the left track.
01:20 On most tanks, what that does is when you pull the right lever,
01:23 it will spin up the left track faster, helping the tank turn.
01:28 Nothing on a tank suspension is designed
01:30 for the comfort of the people inside of a tank.
01:33 It is simply to stabilize the platform for the main gun.
01:37 These things are really hard.
01:39 And you have to remember that every piece inside of a tank
01:42 is probably made of steel.
01:43 And it's probably going to bump you at some point.
01:46 [MACHINERY RUMBLING]
01:49 The Sherman EZ-8 tank-- it's one of the few Sherman tanks that
01:54 uses diesel engines instead of gas engines.
01:56 [MACHINERY RUMBLING]
01:58 Originally, during World War II, for the European theater,
02:01 they wanted the tanks to run on gas,
02:03 so they didn't have that many mixed fuels.
02:05 The EZ-8 was mostly used in the Pacific theater,
02:07 and there they wanted diesel.
02:09 [MACHINERY RUMBLING]
02:12 The heavier the vehicle weighs, the harder
02:17 it is to pull the levers to do any maneuvering.
02:20 So when there was times that I wanted
02:22 to do any specific maneuvers, I would
02:25 have to use both hands on one lever
02:27 just to get the tank to turn.
02:30 You can drive the tank from two different positions.
02:33 Either your head is up outside of the tank looking around,
02:36 or you're down inside of the tank using a periscope
02:39 to see what's outside.
02:41 Using a periscope is extremely difficult,
02:43 especially if you don't know the terrain.
02:45 You have no depth perception, and it makes it harder
02:48 to judge where to go.
02:49 You also lose track of where you are relative to the road.
02:53 Most drivers will tend to want to drive
02:55 in the middle of the road, even though they're
02:57 sitting on either the left side or the right side.
02:59 [ENGINE REVVING]
03:02 There's more to driving a tank than just
03:04 pulling a couple of levers.
03:06 Part of the versatility of a tank
03:08 is what it can do and its capabilities.
03:10 For example, if you get caught in traffic,
03:12 what would you do when you encounter this car?
03:14 [MACHINERY RUMBLING]
03:18 Coming in four times heavier than the Avid,
03:20 the Chieftain weighs 121,000 pounds.
03:24 Crushing a car is a simple task for this vehicle.
03:27 The Chieftain also has a reclining driving position.
03:30 That means that the driver is merely laying down,
03:33 especially if the hatch is closed.
03:34 This was done to create a lower front profile, which
03:38 makes it less susceptible to fire from other tanks.
03:41 Because of its effectiveness, this
03:43 has become almost an industry standard on modern day tanks.
03:47 Traffic is one thing, but what should you
03:49 do if a house stands in your way?
03:51 [ENGINE REVVING]
03:55 [MACHINERY RUMBLING]
03:58 The vintage armored personnel carrier
04:23 is an incredible machine.
04:25 It can carry up to 10 people, as well as
04:27 move them around completely safe from small arms fire.
04:30 As you can see what it does to this house,
04:32 its capabilities are really immense.
04:34 Yes, the trailer is an easy target,
04:36 but its destructive power is very impressive.
04:39 [MACHINERY RUMBLING]
04:42 I'm here with Tony Borglum, owner of Drive-A-Tank.
04:45 So looking at all of these different vehicles,
04:47 the Sherman seems to be the most special that you have here.
04:49 That's right.
04:50 Our Sherman tank is very special to us and everybody
04:52 in the world, really.
04:53 And the Sherman is a symbol of freedom.
04:55 It's a symbol of American ingenuity,
04:57 American industrial power.
04:59 And it really is the vehicle that won World War II.
05:01 One of the things that I thought was really interesting
05:03 is how different the wheel articulation
05:05 is on this vehicle compared to some of the other tanks.
05:08 How does that work?
05:09 Well, the suspension is basically
05:11 what's known as a horseman suspension.
05:12 Essentially, the two wheels pivot together.
05:15 So if they come up, they compress the springs.
05:18 If you're going to drive over something,
05:20 this one will come up and push that one down,
05:22 so it doesn't actually increase pressure on that wheel.
05:24 It simply conforms to the terrain.
05:26 And then if you look like most vehicles like this,
05:29 they all have these periscope kind of attachments,
05:31 which I drove with.
05:33 And it was easy to do, I think, if you knew the track.
05:36 Like, we'd driven around a couple of laps.
05:38 But to drive on unfamiliar terrain, I mean--
05:41 That's right.
05:42 Driving through periscopes is extremely difficult,
05:43 partially because you do not have depth perception
05:45 and peripheral vision.
05:46 So you can't judge distance or speed.
05:47 And it's hard to tell where your vehicle is on the road.
05:49 And that's exactly why all tanks have a tank commander
05:52 that has a whole bunch of periscopes.
05:54 And his only job is to see what's going on,
05:56 know where the vehicle is, and give information
05:58 to the driver.
05:58 And he also assists the gunner, because the gunner,
06:00 just like the driver, has very limited view.
06:02 And he has a tough time finding targets and identifying them.
06:05 So the commander kind of helps everybody
06:07 with their blind spots.
06:08 OK, now let's go look at this Abbot.
06:10 Now, just to get YouTube commenters to stop--
06:13 Yeah, I said you--
06:14 --we will rightfully admit that this is not a tank.
06:16 Yeah.
06:17 Now explain to people why it's not a tank.
06:19 The Abbot that you see here isn't technically a tank.
06:22 For a few reasons.
06:23 But the main fundamentals that make the Abbot not a tank
06:25 are the reasons that it fires non-line of sight, primarily,
06:29 which is indirect fire up to 15 miles away.
06:31 And a tank fires direct line of sight.
06:33 The other reason is that it doesn't
06:34 work in close support of infantry.
06:35 So the real purpose of a tank is to support the infantryman.
06:38 That's what the battle's about.
06:39 And since the Abbot does not work
06:40 in close support of infantry, it stands on its own.
06:42 It lobs high explosive rounds at the enemy, primarily.
06:45 It is not considered a tank.
06:46 It can lower its gun and fill a tank destroyer role.
06:49 It's equipped with hedge rounds, line of sight,
06:51 and anti-tank systems.
06:52 It can do all that.
06:52 But even when it's a tank destroyer,
06:54 a tank destroyer is still not a tank.
06:56 It's a self-propelled gun.
06:57 They're kind of the sporeier of the armored vehicles.
06:59 A Chieftain, yeah, it's really cool.
07:00 But you know what?
07:01 It's 60 tons and it's 800 horsepower.
07:03 Like, it's like driving a train.
07:05 Where the Abbot's, they're a lot more exciting to drive.
07:08 They're cheaper to operate.
07:09 Since they're not a tank, it's behind the fight.
07:11 It's designed with a much longer lifespan in mind.
07:13 So they are cheaper to operate.
07:15 They're smoother to operate.
07:16 Everything about them is a little more refined.
07:18 This is personally one of my favorite tanks.
07:20 I like this tank, the Chieftain.
07:21 The British Chieftain, when it debuted,
07:23 was the most magnificent tank the world had ever seen.
07:25 You can maybe-- people will argue that our M47 or M48
07:28 was better.
07:29 But it's tough to argue with a 120 millimeter main gun,
07:31 a combat weight of 121,000 pounds in 1963.
07:35 I mean, this thing tipped the scales.
07:36 It was the most wicked main battle tank
07:38 the world had seen.
07:39 It brought many design characteristics with it,
07:41 like reclined driver's position that's used today on our tanks.
07:44 Chieftain was the first tank to have that.
07:46 It really broke a lot of ground.
07:47 It used caseless ammunition, much like a battleship.
07:49 That's the way the Brits were able to utilize a 120 millimeter
07:51 round before anybody else.
07:53 It really was just a turning point in armor design.
07:56 And it's not that much different than an Abrams today.
07:59 I mean, physically, they look a lot alike.
08:01 All the Abrams you've ever seen in a movie
08:03 are actually Chieftains made to look like an Abrams.
08:05 That's how similar they are.
08:07 So a fair amount of horsepower, 800 horsepower
08:09 with the 13 alpha engines.
08:10 It's enough to get the job done.
08:11 They move out fairly quickly.
08:13 It's a respectable vehicle even today.
08:15 So it's just a little bit more horsepower than like a Challenger
08:18 Hellcat, which is--
08:20 Your Challenger would be your current--
08:21 Challenger 2 would be current British.
08:23 No, I'm talking about the Dodge.
08:25 Oh, you're talking cars.
08:26 We don't know much about cars around here.
08:28 We crush them with tanks.
08:30 Well, Tony, thank you very much for having us here.
08:32 And this is the biggest toy box I've ever been in.
08:34 And it's just been an absolute blast.
08:37 Awesome.
08:37 We appreciate it.
08:39 Yes, it's a lot of fun crushing a car
08:41 and smashing through a trailer.
08:42 But what you really learn about driving a tank
08:44 is that it takes an entire team to keep
08:47 that vehicle moving forward.
08:49 [MUSIC PLAYING]
08:53 (dramatic music)
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