- 5/25/2025
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01:24Tanks form the shock force of modern armies.
01:27The iron fist with which 20th century generals batter down an enemy.
01:34A hundred years ago it was the cavalry, mounted swordsmen or lancers,
01:38who rushed across the battlefield to deliver the decisive blow.
01:42On today's battlefields, like here in Israel on the Golan Heights,
01:46modern cavalrymen ride to the charge on tracks behind cannon and armour.
01:57Here on this Merkava, the Hebrew word for chariot,
02:00you can clearly see the three principles that have been fundamental
02:03to the concept of the tank from the beginning.
02:05Protection, firepower and mobility.
02:08For protection, there's the armour plating,
02:11a foot or more thick here at the front end.
02:14Uniquely, this tank has its engine also in the nose,
02:17as added protection for its crew.
02:19For firepower, there's the 105mm gun,
02:22a weapon that can knock out another tank two miles away.
02:25There are also three heavy machine guns up there on top.
02:33Mobility is provided by the 900 horsepower engine underneath here.
02:38It means that this 60 tonne monster can travel 20 miles an hour across open country.
02:43It can climb a 30 degree gradient and it can cross nine foot ditches.
02:48These then are the three principles of every tank.
02:51And throughout its short history,
02:53its success has depended on getting the right balance between them.
03:07It was on battlefields 2,000 miles distant from the Golan
03:11and 80 years away in time,
03:13that the idea of the tank was introduced to the military imagination.
03:17The First World War crisscrossed the landscape
03:19with barbed wire, trenches and crater fields.
03:28Cavalry, which had won quick victories for 2,000 years,
03:32was blown from the battlefield in the first few weeks.
03:42The Industrial Revolution had made the cavalryman and his horse obsolete.
03:47But it had invented new forms of horsepower
03:50that unconventional minds realised could be made to take their place.
03:54The caterpillar tractor, seen here in a film of 1908
03:58advertising its usefulness to the farmer, was one of them.
04:12Machines like these took hold of the imagination
04:15of soldiers like Ernest Swinton.
04:17Appalled by his first sight of the Western Front,
04:20his mind turned to the tractor as a way through it.
04:30On Christmas Day 1914,
04:32he wrote a requirement for a bulletproof vehicle
04:35which would roll down barbed wire by sheer weight
04:38and support the advance by machine gun fire.
04:41It would become the specification for the first tank.
04:46This is one of the earliest tanks.
04:48It's called the Mark IV and came into service in 1917.
04:53Already the three principles are beginning to show up,
04:57albeit in rudimentary form.
04:59Mobility.
05:00On these tracks it could roll at 3.5 miles an hour.
05:05For firepower, Hotchkiss machine guns
05:08and further forward, the six-pounder.
05:11But it was in protection that the British Army was mainly interested.
05:14And although its armour was only half an inch thick,
05:17it was enough to protect the crew from enemy fire.
05:19Fear not, was the motto adopted by the British Tank Corps
05:22from the earliest days,
05:24in tribute to the tank's bullet-stopping skin.
05:28The tank was a revolutionary weapon.
05:31To man it on the battlefield demanded a special breed of soldier.
05:35One of the pioneers, George Brown, recalls the early days.
05:40There was a crew of eight in the tank.
05:42There was a driver on the primary gears.
05:45The officer sat on his left on the handbrakes.
05:48I was a Lewis gunner.
05:50There were two Lewis gunners in each tank.
05:54I was a Lewis gunner.
05:55There were two Lewis gunners in each sponson.
05:58Two sponsons on each side of the tank.
06:00So it took four men to drive the tank.
06:03And the other four men were just gunners.
06:09You were trained to do all the jobs.
06:11You were trained on the secondary gears.
06:13You were trained on the machine guns.
06:14You were trained on the six-pounder guns.
06:16And, of course, you were trained as a driver.
06:23Yes, sir.
06:28Stand up!
06:32Come on, boys!
06:37Get up!
06:39The stories of the British Army
06:51The story of the tank can be told
06:53by looking at how it has mastered each of its three principles.
06:57Protection first,
06:58because it was protection the British Army valued highest.
07:01Protection for the tank crews
07:03and protection for the infantry following the paths
07:05that the tank crushed in the barbed wire.
07:08Tank was the cover name adopted while the machines were being built for the Great British
07:18Offensive on the Somme in 1916. On the first day, none were ready. The British advanced
07:24unprotected against the German machine guns, and 20,000 British soldiers died. Two months
07:30later, with a handful of tanks, the British won the Little Battle of Flair at far less
07:35cost in lives. Once we started to open fire on the Germans, all hell was let loose. High
07:44explosive bursting overhead, shells hitting the ground and bursting. When you first opened
07:55fire, there was already the rattle of their machine gun bullets and rifle bullets hitting
08:01the side of the tank. And unless there were armour-piercing bullets, they didn't penetrate
08:06the tank. They just made a dent, that's all. You heard a rattle on the outside, it was
08:12like somebody hitting a tin can. The machine gun bullets didn't penetrate, but they threw
08:16off shale on the inside of the tank, and it used to pit the face with tiny bits of steel,
08:22you see, and it used to bleed. You came out looking a bit sorry. They were so well protected.
08:29If you had a direct hit, then you can't say anything about it. You've got to suffer that
08:34for machine gun fire and that sort of thing. It didn't offer any fear at all. No, your
08:39object was to get there and back. You didn't see any fear.
08:49Protection came to obsess the minds of some tank designers. Weight defeats mobility in
08:54tank design. That's one of the iron rules. Unless that is the size of the gun, an ammunition
08:59load is reduced. The British Matilda, at the start of World War II, had almost impenetrable
09:12armour, but its gun, as a consequence, was practically a toy. The American Sherman avoided
09:20this defect. It had a good gun and great mobility. It was, indeed, almost a perfect
09:27design, except for poor protection, as some Sherman crewmen recall.
09:31When we first got them, we thought they were a smashing tank. We did take quite a while
09:38in readjusting all the inside pieces to suit our individual tastes. No tank is ever made
09:45that suits the whole crew. So you take some pieces out and throw them away, and you put
09:51in other pieces, and you alter things around just to suit yourself. Perhaps the metal was
09:56a bit thick. We had extra plates welded on the side, right across the ammunition ports.
10:01Of course, if you were slightly sideways to the enemy, you had a beautiful aiming mark.
10:07It was all hedgerows. We had to go climb over the hedgerows, and every time we would show
10:13our belly, the Germans would fire 30mm into our belly and blow us up, because that was
10:18a very vulnerable spot. The tank around us, our power was all steel, but the belly wasn't
10:22that thick. So what they did, the engineers designed a prong, and they welded this onto
10:29the front of the tank. So instead of going over the hedgerow, we went through the hedgerow.
10:38But it was the Russians who first hit upon the perfect compromise between a tank's mobility
10:43firepower, and protection. The result was called the T-34. Its qualities astounded German
10:49tank men like Henry Mittelman. We found the T-34 a very effective weapon. We were frightened
10:57of it. When we met it at the first time, they just drove through our lines, and we had little
11:02chance to shoot them, because they have this shape in front, while ours are more straight.
11:10You could hit ours better than theirs. When you hit them, the thing went off or down below.
11:22German crews manning their early tanks thought the design was good.
11:26They seemed to me something like iron horses. I was proud to belong to Panzer troops. We
11:34got the Panzer III, and we got the Panzer IV. I saw them driving around. It's a powerful
11:39thing to watch, and I thought, yes, to be a member of such an army, that's something
11:44to be proud of. So I was looking forward to a training. The Panther, and later the Tiger,
11:51were the Germans' answer to their experience of meeting the T-34. They had called for
11:56bigger guns and stronger armour, and got them in these powerful machines. But however thick
12:04the armour, tank men know they are vulnerable to the right shot.
12:09I drove several tanks, and also worked with the infantry and the tank supporting units.
12:18I personally, I was always happier when I was in a trench. That wasn't a nice experience
12:24either, but in a trench, you could put your head down, and you could keep out of the way.
12:29In a tank, you were just sitting there, and you were relying totally on your luck that
12:33you should not be hit.
12:35I think when you looked at the poor bloody infantry outside, you felt at times sort of
12:41very affectionate towards your tank, this wonderful steel womb within which you travelled.
12:47On the other hand, although that protected you against shell and mortar fire so long
12:52as you were inside it, you were, when you moved across open ground, a very large target
12:59for the very accurate and effective German guns, and if you had any sort of imagination,
13:04you were aware of what would happen when they got you in their sights.
13:12Tanks, of course, have never been able to offer their crews complete protection. Indeed,
13:16part of the story of the tank has been the deadly competition of technological development.
13:20As soon as one designer comes up with improved armour, others set about trying to find ways
13:25to penetrate it, and this is what happens when protection fails.
13:48This Israeli tank dump gives us a glimpse of what happens when a shot strikes home,
13:53but not the unforgettable sight of a tank catching fire.
13:58For the moment, you see a cloud of smoke goes around it, and then there's nothing, and then
14:03all of a sudden, from where the hole is, smoke starts to come, and then the smoke gradually
14:09increases. It's just like lighting a bonfire in the garden. Up it goes, the ammunition
14:15catches, the petrol catches, and then it's a ball of fire, and when that goes, that's
14:20quite a frightening sight.
14:23We got hit with an 88, right in the middle. The two in the front got killed. The tank
14:29commander got out. I got out, and I was burnt. I lost a part of my ear, and I was burnt on
14:34my arm. Anyway, I rolled off the back of the tank, but the radio operator had to come out
14:40after I got out, had to go underneath the gun and come out. He never made it. He was
14:45afire already, but the whole tank blew up. We had just reloaded with a full tank of ammunition,
14:5075mm shells plus machine gun bullets, and as he came out, he was aflame. They did him
14:56a favour. They sprayed him, and they killed him. They finished him.
15:01If a tank had brewed up, and any member of the crew was in the tank, and they were burnt,
15:07that smell of burning is once again a smell that stays with you. Even nowadays, I hate
15:13the smell of burning flesh. If the oven gets a bit hot at home, and the meat gets cooked
15:21a bit too much, I don't like it. It's a horrible smell.
15:28Anti-tank guns grew deadlier as the war went on.
15:32The German 88 was the most effective, made all the more lethal because Germans perfected
15:43the trick of drawing enemy tanks into its killing zone.
15:53The greatest of the tank killing zones of the Second World War was to be laid by the
15:58Russians for the Battle of Kursk in July 1943. The Germans codenamed it Operation Citadel
16:04and intended it to be the most decisive tank attack so far. They started the assault with
16:102,700 tanks.
16:21The Russians, who had long been expecting the attack, had prepared one of the strongest
16:25defensive positions in the history of warfare. 6,000 anti-tank guns and millions of mines.
16:32The German fighting machine was ground down by the weight of fire.
16:36Then, on the sixth day of the battle, the Russians went over the offensive themselves,
16:59with nearly 4,000 of their own tanks.
17:06A thousand German tanks were destroyed.
17:35The carnage at Kursk revealed all too clearly how vulnerable tanks were when they were launched
17:40at strong anti-tank defences.
18:04The tactical strike aircraft now became the tank's deadliest enemy. Against the newly
18:18developed air-to-ground missile, the tank's armour cracked like snail shells under a bird's beak.
18:24Soon, the tank had to fear infantrymen too, who had acquired a miniaturised anti-tank
18:35weapon. A brave soldier could now kill a tank single-handedly.
18:41The threat of the missile has had its effect on post-war tanks. Now, their armour is sloped
18:52at steeper angles to deflect attack. Gaps to absorb chemical energy, layered to shatter
18:59solid shock. But missiles can still do terrible damage, as Israeli tank commander General
19:08Yossi testifies.
19:10My tank was hit by a Sager missile, a wire garage missile, on 12 October on Tel Shams
19:16in the Golan.
19:19This British swing fire is the equivalent of the Sager.
19:22We fight with open hatch, and I was with half of my body outside, operating the machine
19:28gun. When the missile arrived, I was entangled in the wires. It was a wire-guided missile.
19:39And then the second one came, it comes very slowly, like a ball of fire, rolling into
19:44your face, explosion in the turret, and then the next thing, a very high heat wave that
19:51takes you, and then I felt that I was flying, and the next thing I found myself on the ground,
19:58fairly smashed.
20:04This explosion, unlike a shell, is not an impact. A shell, and I've been in situations
20:11when shells hit my tank, is an impact, fragmentation. The fragmentation that happens, you don't
20:17feel. What you feel is this enormous wave of heat around you, and this pressure that
20:23just blows you out. And if you're lucky, you stay alive to tell the story.
20:28These ruined tanks from three Arab-Israeli wars show all too clearly what happens when
20:43protection fails, and they are the grim proof of the second principle in every tank's design,
20:49firepower.
20:59Experience has proved that there is no such thing as total protection. To survive, a tank
21:05crew must control the means to destroy its attackers. It must have mighty firepower.
21:29Commander, gunner, loader, driver. The first three are involved in firing the gun.
21:44When you fire this 105mm gun, the whole turret is filled with explosion, and then a blast
21:51of this gunpowder that remains in the gun, and it all comes back to the turret, and after
21:57the third shot or the fourth shot, the crew inside hardly breathes, and the gunner has
22:02to manage to make corrections of half of a mil within this kind of noise, and it's very,
22:08very tough on the individual.
22:17British heavy tanks of World War I were of two types. One was armed only with machine
22:23guns in its role of supporting infantry. The other, designed to destroy strong points,
22:28had machine guns and a six-pounder naval gun.
22:53The A7V, Germany's first tank, had six machine guns manned by infantrymen and a cannon served
22:59by artillerymen. The engines were supervised by sappers. So there was a total crew of 18.
23:05With so many men to accommodate, the A7V was a large and clumsy vehicle. Small wonder it
23:10did so badly in the first tank-to-tank engagement in history on April 24, 1918. Maneuvering
23:17to avoid British fire, it overturned and was abandoned by its crew.
23:24Appropriately, its opponent was No. 1 Tank of No. 1 Section, A Company, 1st Battalion,
23:29British Tank Corps.
23:37Tank-versus-tank fights, rare in the First World War, became commonplace in the Second.
23:43The caliber of the tank's main armament climbed steadily throughout the war, with the Allies
23:48lagging behind the Germans.
23:52The British tanks were, throughout the war, undergunned in comparison with the German
23:58tanks. To deal with an enemy Tiger tank, it was necessary to come within something like
24:06200 to 300 yards and place armor piercing shot either through the turret ring of the
24:13German tank or through the periscopes.
24:18Against infantry, the tank's firepower was always devastating, especially if it was equipped
24:23with a flamethrower, like the Churchill Crocodile.
24:26There was one particular place where we were actually more or less pinned down by even
24:31snipers. Every time a tank commander put his head up, he was fired on, and there was
24:37quite a number of head injuries there, and we sent for help, and help came in the form
24:44of a flamethrower. One spurt straight up and down the tree, and there was eight bodies
24:50strapped up in the tree, now hanging down loose. We then continued on our journey.
24:56Andrew Wilson commanded such a tank.
24:58We started firing inevitably earlier than we should have done, but we continued flaming
25:04right up to the target, and there was a horrible sound, I remember, which I thought could have
25:10been the squeaking of the tracks, but in fact were, I believe, the screaming of men. We
25:16did, in fact, burn people on that occasion. The sight of the body that the flamethrower
25:22had incinerated was particularly horrible.
25:29Since the Second World War, the tank's main gun has become even more powerful.
25:36Range finding is far more accurate, and stabilization systems make it possible to fire on the move.
25:44The gun, which is a major weapon system, the two machine guns, and the first machine gun,
25:50the second machine gun, are the most accurate weapons.
25:55is far more accurate.
25:56And stabilization systems make it possible
25:58to fire on the move.
26:01The gun, which is a major weapon system,
26:04the two machine guns, in our case, the three machine guns,
26:08the mortar that we put, the immediate smoke,
26:10the hand grenades, the personal weapon systems
26:14that you hold, all this give you,
26:16with your three other crew member,
26:19firepower equivalent to a full infantry company.
26:23You can really aim this fire,
26:26and that's the main role of the tank,
26:28to move around the battlefield and to bring this firepower
26:31under the possession of four people,
26:33directed to one target, and win the battle.
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27:24Movement was the aim with which the tank visionaries began.
27:28They saw a battlefield on which movement
27:30was all but impossible.
27:31An armored machine seemed to promise
27:33the means of restoring mobility to the soldier.
27:36But could those pioneers have even glimpsed
27:38the astonishing speed and agility
27:41that their brainchild would attain?
27:50Well, the third principle that underlies
27:52the concept of the tank,
27:54and it's the principle that's done more than anything else
27:56to change the face of battle in the 20th century,
27:58is its mobility.
28:00I'm standing in the turret of Challenger,
28:02Britain's latest main battle tank.
28:04And we just came down a section of that track behind us
28:07at over 45 miles an hour.
28:09Despite its 62 tons of all-up weight,
28:12the Challenger will also go over the roughest terrain
28:15very fast indeed,
28:16either forwards or, if necessary, backwards.
28:19It's tanks like these and their predecessors
28:21that have given back to commanders
28:23that element of shock that they lost
28:25when cavalry disappeared from the battlefield.
28:29The tank reintroduced movement into modern warfare
28:32after the stalemate of the First World War,
28:34even if the speeds of the early tanks
28:36pale into insignificance compared to the modern tank.
28:42On no battlefield of the First World War
28:44did the tank really make good its potential
28:46as an instrument of mobility.
28:48At first, it was used in numbers too small to count.
28:54Then it was misused,
28:56launched in the spring of 1917
28:58into a battlefield that had been shelled into a bog.
29:10At Cambrai in the autumn of 1917,
29:13when tanks were used en masse for the first time,
29:16cooperation with the infantry broke down.
29:18The attack, brilliantly successful at the outset,
29:21finally failed.
29:24At Amiens in 1918,
29:26the greatest of the tank battles of the war,
29:28it was the tanks themselves
29:30which failed to live up to their promise.
29:32They proved too slow and too unreliable.
29:35They undoubtedly terrified the Germans,
29:37but they did not demonstrate
29:38that they were a decisive instrument of breakthrough.
29:44With the victory of the Allies,
29:46the traditional high command
29:47threw the battlefield into the hands of the enemy.
29:50With the victory of the Allies,
29:52the traditional high command thought
29:53that trench warfare would not happen again.
29:56So the importance of the tank was downgraded.
29:59The Americans even abolished the tank corps after 1918.
30:04In France, the infantry and artillery
30:06fought for control of the tanks,
30:09and the infantry won.
30:11This meant tanks became the infantry's handmaiden.
30:15In the British Army,
30:16the tank corps, though well-established by 1926,
30:19was resented.
30:21Especially by the cavalry.
30:23The conservative military leaders of the day
30:25saw the tank's job as supporting the other arms
30:28in the various roles once carried out,
30:30as the battle developed, by the cavalry.
30:34You had a sort of period of skirmishing
30:37as you approached the enemy
30:39in which you had light forces,
30:41which in the very old days had been cavalry,
30:44who told you where the enemy were
30:45while you made up your mind
30:47whether or not you were actually going to accept battle
30:50and how you were going to accept it.
30:53And then you had a major battle
30:56in which the infantry took a classic part.
31:00And they saw tanks as being required for two things.
31:03To act as sort of light cavalry,
31:05in which case you wanted light tanks.
31:08And to act in support of the infantry
31:10in the main battle itself.
31:13And also to act,
31:14as cavalry was used in the Middle Ages and beyond,
31:17as a sort of shock action
31:20at a crucial part in the battle
31:22which had been created by the infantry fighting.
31:29Yet it was two British military thinkers,
31:31Basil Little Hart and General Fuller,
31:34who proposed the idea of the tank revolution.
31:36They argued that the tank was the key to the military future,
31:39that far from being anyone's handmaiden,
31:42the tank was destined to be the queen of battle,
31:44around which all other arms would be organised.
31:47Their views aroused as much official enthusiasm
31:50as the arrival of a horse butcher at a cavalry barracks.
32:04In Germany, where defeat had shattered the power
32:07of vested interests,
32:08Little Hart and Fuller found a hearing.
32:10Germany had been forbidden tanks by the Versailles Treaty,
32:14but the army had experimented with them in secret.
32:16By 1933, they had a few prototypes.
32:19When they were demonstrated to Adolf Hitler,
32:22he exclaimed with delight,
32:23that's what I need, that's what I want.
32:26He lavished money on the German Panzer arm,
32:28so that by 1939, it could field 10 tank divisions.
32:33They were organised to attack,
32:34as Fuller and Little Hart had taught,
32:36in a compact mass,
32:38supported overhead by clouds of tactical aircraft.
32:44Their aim was to create irresistible shock
32:47on a very narrow front, and break in.
32:49The German tanks were to be used
32:51as a means of counter-offensive,
32:53and the German tanks were to be used
32:55as a means of counter-offensive,
32:57and the German tanks as a means of counter-offensive.
33:01Once break-in had been achieved,
33:03break-through was to be completed
33:05by finding and exploiting the weak spots
33:07inside the enemy positions.
33:09It would spread panic and cause psychological,
33:11as much as material, damage.
33:13Blitzkrieg, the Germans called the new concept,
33:16lightning war.
33:18Blitzkrieg struck down Poland first,
33:20and then Holland, Belgium and France.
33:31But it was in Russia that Blitzkrieg
33:33achieved its most spectacular effects.
33:35The world will hold its breath,
33:37boasted Hitler,
33:39at the outset of Operation Barbarossa,
33:41in June 1941.
33:43Three army groups,
33:45each tipped by the cutting edge of a Panzer Corps,
33:47broke through the Red Army.
33:52300, 600, 900,000
33:55were killed.
33:57300, 600, 900,000
34:00Russian soldiers and their equipment
34:02were swallowed up at a single gulp.
34:06Blitzkrieg had changed the face of warfare.
34:12I remember when we took Rostov, for instance,
34:14with the tanks,
34:16and I was one of the first tanks
34:18who drove into Rostov
34:20when we took the city away from the Russians.
34:28To have conquered a town,
34:30to go into the town square,
34:32and then there were all the burned-out
34:34trams were lying around,
34:36and you got out of your tank,
34:38you were black from all the oil
34:40and dust and things flowing around.
34:42You had taken a town,
34:44you have beaten the enemy,
34:46you are the master of it,
34:48OK, a few of them got killed,
34:50of your own mates or so.
34:52You went over to the other crews,
34:54and you were laughing again,
34:56and one quickly forgot all the horror things.
35:06In the western desert of North Africa,
35:08the Germans also waged a war of movement
35:10against the British.
35:12Though not one they had all their own way,
35:14the British were acquiring better tanks
35:16and becoming expert in using them.
35:20In Europe, the Americans too
35:22quickly grasped the secrets of tank warfare.
35:24When the Allies descended on Normandy in 1944
35:26to begin the liberation of France,
35:28they proved to the Germans
35:30that they too had mastered
35:32the tactics of breakthrough.
35:48Overwhelming air power
35:50was part of the secret,
35:52widespread use of radio, the other.
35:54The magic ingredient for even the tanks
35:56themselves to be controlled
35:58was the development of being able
36:00to use radio sets
36:02down to every individual tank
36:04on the move.
36:08Here on the plains of Germany,
36:10British tank crews in their chieftains
36:12developed the difficult art of communicating
36:14by radio.
36:16Charlie, Charlie, this is a warning order.
36:18Alpha, three tanks, grid,
36:20six, one, two, seven, eight, three.
36:22Mission to destroy.
36:26Wait. Charlie, right blanking.
36:28Delta,
36:30call sign one, zero,
36:32three, zero,
36:34and four, zero.
36:36To move
36:38around fire base,
36:40call sign one, zero, current location.
36:42Call sign two, zero.
36:44With this call sign, we'll mask
36:46and prevent enemy movement.
36:48The other ten tanks
36:50in your company,
36:52them you have to control through radio.
36:54It's very difficult.
36:56You have to convey to them through
36:58some metallic voice
37:00all the emotions, all the energy
37:02that you want them to carry
37:04in the situation where they face
37:06the enemy, and you want them to be placed
37:08in the right position, because sometimes
37:10two meters makes a difference.
37:12Eleven, twelve, grid six, one, two,
37:14seven, eight, three.
37:16Operator, next fire position is just
37:18to the left of the barn, on the barn.
37:20Zero, this is Oscar one, zero.
37:22Now we've entered position.
37:26The problem, of course, as with
37:28any military command, is to know what's going on
37:30and to be able to see
37:32as far as possible.
37:34Very seldom possible to see
37:36where everybody was.
37:38You are the whole time concentrating
37:40on what is going on on the radio,
37:42as well as using your own eyes
37:44and your own feel about
37:46all the noises going on.
37:48And, of course, you are on the radio
37:50forwards as well as backwards.
37:54Oscar two, zero, this is zero.
37:56Reference, no contact.
37:58Eleven, twelve, grid six, one, two, seven, eight, three.
38:00Confirm one tank, that's position.
38:04Oscar two, zero, at the moment
38:06Oscar two, one is
38:08moving round over.
38:10Under, roger, aye.
38:12As the Second World War
38:14drew to its climax, the tank
38:16began to fall victim to attrition.
38:18The very sort of warfare it had been conceived
38:20to overcome. Vast production
38:22was matched by vast losses.
38:24The British and Americans who produced
38:2630,000 tanks in 1943
38:28found they needed all
38:30that came off the factory line.
38:34The Russians manufactured
38:3615,000, but suffered losses
38:38at a comparable rate.
38:42But this industrial war
38:44was one the Germans could not win.
38:46Though astoundingly they produced
38:486,000 tanks in 1943,
38:50they could barely make good their losses.
38:56Kursk had been a terrible blow for them.
38:58The first and greatest of the attrition battles.
39:00The British equivalent
39:02was Operation Goodwood,
39:04where they lost 300 tanks
39:06in two days.
39:08It was their great tank offensive
39:10designed to break out of Normandy in 1944
39:12and it failed.
39:20In the Battle of Berlin,
39:22the Red Army lost 2,000 tanks
39:24and assault guns in three weeks fighting.
39:30The Israelis have sometimes
39:32been able to recapture
39:34the exhilarating pace of Blitzkrieg
39:36in their wars against the Arabs.
39:38But increasingly they too
39:40have found that mass tank battles
39:42on narrow fronts killed crews
39:44and filled tank graveyards
39:46in the same way that the Western Front
39:48killed infantry.
40:00The tank has also proved
40:02to have its limitations.
40:04In built up areas,
40:06in close country,
40:08in the jungle as the Americans
40:10found in Vietnam,
40:12it is all too vulnerable
40:14to close range weapons
40:16handled by a hidden enemy.
40:24Yet the whole experience
40:26of tank warfare
40:28good and bad
40:30has made the men
40:32who live in and fight from
40:34these armoured monsters
40:36a breed apart from other soldiers.
40:38The noise is terrific.
40:40It's not only the noise
40:42of the engine and of the tracks
40:44or of the gunfire outside
40:46or of your own gun.
40:48It's also the noise that's coming
40:50through your headphones,
40:52the mush which can be absolutely piercing.
40:54It was also, of course,
40:56very closed in.
40:58It didn't do to be claustrophobic.
41:04There was total confusion.
41:06It's what Clausewitz called
41:08the fog of war.
41:10I mean, it was really
41:12very literally there in my experience.
41:14Every battle is chaotic.
41:16When you are in a tank,
41:18especially as a driver
41:20and you don't see very much,
41:22it is chaotic.
41:24Every few minutes, a little bit to here,
41:26a little bit to there.
41:28As an infantry soldier,
41:30there's a certain purpose in it.
41:32You see what you are doing.
41:34You can defend yourself.
41:36Having no vision of what is going on
41:38around you, that creates
41:40a chaotic condition in your mind.
41:54When you were in action,
41:56the tank commander was either
41:58sitting on a very, very small seat
42:00or mainly standing up.
42:02If he was standing up,
42:04an average chap could just about
42:06look over the edge of the cupola.
42:08And you'd be standing there
42:10for about 12, 14 hours
42:12during the day in the summer.
42:14In that time,
42:16you've got very little exercise
42:18in yourself.
42:20And we found to start with,
42:22we were getting something
42:24that was called
42:26tank commander's legs.
42:28The legs just became very swollen
42:30between the knees and the ankles.
42:32It was very, very painful.
42:34If you didn't take your boots off,
42:36if you took your boots off,
42:38you'd never get them back on again.
42:40It's horrible.
42:42I disliked it all the time.
42:44One never admits it, really.
42:46One always tries to tell,
42:48as a young soldier, heroic stories.
42:50The smell and the noise.
42:52In summer, it's very hot.
42:54In winter, it's very cold.
42:56When the winter came on,
42:58if you were feeling a little hungry,
43:00you could shove potatoes
43:02down the exhaust pipes of the tank
43:04and let them rumble away
43:06in the silencers for a minute or two.
43:08And then you revved up the thing.
43:10You had a bucket full of beautiful
43:12roast potatoes or things like that.
43:14And against orders, we were always
43:16brewing up tea on our petrol cookers
43:18But the big problem,
43:20when we were in action for a long time,
43:22you know, perhaps three or four hours,
43:24and you were completely closed down,
43:26you couldn't get out, of course,
43:28how did you pee?
43:30And the only way to cope with this problem
43:32was that you shoved a 75mm round
43:34into the gun,
43:36you fired off the round
43:38in the direction of Germany,
43:40you got out the shell case,
43:42and you used that.
43:44But you had to be very careful
43:46when you came out of the breach.
43:48The only toilet you had
43:50was your steel helmet.
43:52You used it for anything and everything,
43:54besides shaving.
43:56But you also used it for your toilet,
43:58you opened up your little coffee hole,
44:00and out there it went,
44:02it went back on your head again.
44:08On operations, which of course
44:10was most of the time in Normandy
44:12and northwest Europe,
44:14at night, under a canvas bivouac
44:16beside the tank, if we bothered to put that up,
44:18I mean, often we would just sort of sleep
44:20on the ground, on our ground sheets,
44:22sometimes under the tank,
44:24because that offered a degree of safety,
44:26though there were people who told horrid tales
44:28of tanks having sunk into the ground
44:30and killed people.
44:44When you're in a tank,
44:46it's like a snow,
44:48you're carrying your own house
44:50around with you.
44:52Everything you want
44:54is with you.
44:56You've got to carry on the tank
44:58all your belongings that you need
45:00stacked somewhere
45:02on the tank.
45:04Your blankets,
45:06your ground sheet.
45:08We had our tank adapted
45:10to on the front,
45:12with these brackets.
45:14We had little ammunition boxes
45:16with all our personal bits and pieces
45:18in there.
45:20The odd bottle of whiskey or two
45:22when we got the chance,
45:24that was in there as well.
45:32Cheers.
45:34All our pockets were full of coffee.
45:36We didn't bother putting in ammunition
45:38because the coffee was important in the morning.
45:40If you're cold, you want a cup of coffee.
45:42The infantrymen used to love us for that.
45:44They'd bang their rifle on a tank
45:46and shove in their cup
45:48through the porthole
45:50and we'd heat up the water for them
45:52and they'd have hot coffee.
45:54They used to love that, you see.
45:56Cheers.
46:08We ate together.
46:10It was immediately possible
46:12to spot the best cook
46:14in the crew or in the troop
46:16and we shared the same best things.
46:18We often passed the same mug around.
46:20We ate with the same knives and forks.
46:22All these inhibitions
46:24of peacetime went.
46:26I mean, we were as close
46:28as men could be to each other
46:30and without any sort of
46:32sexual connotation,
46:34this was a matter really of
46:36loving people with whom you worked
46:38and I don't think it
46:40too much of a hyperbole
46:42to say that that is what did exist
46:44in the tank crew.
46:46It was love in the best sense of the word.
46:50The tank is and seems likely to remain
46:52the principal instrument of ground warfare.
46:56Its enemies may increase.
47:16But despite the risks
47:18and threats that menace the tank today,
47:20most experienced veterans
47:22of armored warfare believe
47:24in the tank's future.
47:26My view is that the tank
47:28is going to be with us
47:30for many, many years to come
47:32but it might change its shape.
47:34It might be a little bit
47:36different than it looks now
47:38but the concept of a mobile platform
47:40that brings into the battlefield
47:42three dimensions.
47:44The protection.
47:46First, the firepower on board
47:48and then the protection.
47:50With the mobility,
47:52it's going to last with us
47:54for as long as the wars
47:56will continue in the land.
48:08The real problem on the battlefield
48:10of today, as it has been
48:12all down the centuries,
48:14is how to go forward
48:16It is not an easy thing to do.
48:18The development of
48:20weapons systems in all armies
48:22tends to favor the defense,
48:24tends to make it very difficult
48:26to go forward from where you are
48:28towards where the enemy is.
48:30That is what the tank was originally
48:32produced for and that is what the tank
48:34is primarily required for now.
48:36It's a means of getting
48:38firepower forward from
48:40one place to another in the face
48:42of very considerable fire from the enemy.
48:44Now, you're not going to be able
48:46to do that without any arm around you.
48:48You're not going to be able to do it
48:50just in a bulletproof vest.
48:52You're not going to be able to do it
48:54in a helicopter, which is very vulnerable
48:56on the battlefield.
48:58It will therefore require a form of mobility
49:00which will get you over the ground,
49:02which must be mechanical because
49:04if you're going to take any protection
49:06with you, that's got to be moved
49:08by mechanical means.
49:10The problem for the tank in the future
49:12it's got to carry with it.
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