Abrams Switchology and Fire Control System
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- Опубліковано 21 вер 2024
- Or, how to use the M1 to kill things (Other than running over them).
An overview of the knobs, toggles and buttons, and then how they all work together to put steel on target..
The sim, for those few hard-core enough, is Steel Beasts Pro PE.
T-Shirt designed by Jin Ching-Lim
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It may be acquired at www.everpress.c...
28:16 "SWAG, Scientific Wild Ass Guess."
Well that is a term I have never heard of, so taking it though. A most informative video as always.
The way gunnery works and the systems work and their effectiveness is evident. Devastating stuff.
TLAR is a related bombing technique the air force guys have. "That Looks About Right"
@@TheChieftainsHatch Hah, that's how I War Thunder.
Interestingly enough, living around military bases in the US all my life, SWAG and a couple other phrases are common parlance, I’ve even heard it on the playground with parents cautioning their kids as to use of language, as the word “ass” is such context was a bit coarse for pre-schoolers. Of course that was 20 years ago, I imagine it’s got a LOT “coarser” now a days.
Military acronyms are the best acronyms.
I've always heard as seriously wild assed guess, comes after wag and ROM.
OMG the memories coming back to me. . . When you were lobbing the APFSDS so far over the target, I just started laughing, my girlfriend was wondering why. I told her that you were indexed to fire HEAT.( I explained to her the different ammo types) She asked me if I ever did that, I told her only in the UCOFT when I was first training. After watching so many gunners before myself training, I was so pissed at myself for making that mistake. I laugh at it now 25 years later.
In a Leopard the Loader sets the right ammo index of what he loaded. In my time I did not see that someone did it wrong...
Did that once, in an M60A1. Luckily, no one in Coppers Cove TX "noticed"!
Saw it happen once at Graf. Cease fire freeze all right. Master blaster figured out where it actually landed while we joked about bombing Czechoslovakia (the arty guys could and supposedly occasionally did).
@@DeCSSData ; I personally think that the better solution. I mean he ought to know what he just rammed in...hopefully
@@RoninTF2011 Everything's so computerized nowadays, you'd think the ammo would be able to identify itself to the FCS when it goes in. I mean, it works for groceries. Most of the time. :)
Ah the good old Steel beasts simulator. As a Leo 2a6 gunner i have to say i'm very envious of the range of zoom on the sights as a6 we had was limited to 12x day and 4/12x night with 8x aux and no unity sight what so ever. Made operating in thick forests a pain in the butt with 120mm L55 compared to L44 on a4s. M1s and Leos also have excellent hunter killer functionality (if TC remembers to use them in battle stress) and makes finding target much smoother for the gunner especial in Leo 2a6 with extremely limited visibility due to high mag nature of main sight. Would loooove to have a simmilar TC 50.cal instead of having to use aux.7.62 to engage ground targets. Great and very informative video as always. Can we get a T72 next :D
@@michaelcenteno8724 I was a conscript in Finnish self defense forces for a year and I served as a Leo 2a6 gunner. Finland has a conscript army so i'm in no way a veteran tanker like many people i met in various exercises such as Arrow 18 (you can look it up has some pretty nice footage by few of our guys and some combat camera footage) with US marines we trained with. It was a pretty great experience but I definitely don't envy those who get sent to war zones and live in such a hostile place for multiple months.
I wanna say the A2’s really high zoom setting are probably digital zoom levels and that SBP doesn’t simulate the pixelation that would result.
@@Phos9 True but in my opinion you don't really need zoom levels above 12 when target is within 2 km or so. Low zoom is way better for urban and forrested environments where engagement range is under 1km most of the time. SB is a very good simulator but there are many things it doesn't do. As an example thermal cam is never as clear as in SB and you have to constantly fiddle around with contrast and you better hope there is no fog or rain. Thermal expansion will mess your shots up if you are not carefull and check for.
MangaMarshal oh yeah no low zoom levels, the almost cartoonish way steel beasts pro handles the x50 zoom is just something I’m kinda fixated on because of how odd it seems compared to the authenticity they went into for non simulator crucial factors, like going to the trouble to randomize the degree to which the laser range finder in the T-72 is misaligned.
@Micheal C why would assume that.
Brilliant! Shame the chieftain doesn’t have his own, spare M1 though 😂
We should probably start a go fund me account for him.. It's sad to see a man without his tank.. 🙁
Oscar Mayer excellent idea! Then another fund for the fuel 😂
@@matthayward7889
Oh my boy, he will need more than just fuel!
Gareth Fairclough it was more of a dig at the M1s notoriously bad fuel consumption, but yeah, the running costs on an MBT are huge.
I got to drive a Chieftan for my 30th birthday, and was chatting to the guys who owned it: just the gearbox overhauls were cripplingly expensive!
I hope England gets fucked after brexit
As an old M-60A3 tanker who never got to transition to the M-1 series, this is especially fascinating - and yeah, the TTS was an exquisite sight. Thank you for this - though now I'm going to need to find the $125 for a PE license :D
If you do and want to help me with the M60 Switchology video...
You can get it cheaper for a limited time license
A M60 video would be cool
@@TheChieftainsHatch I'd be interested in helping such a video, though my memory is rather touch and go after 34 years and being a scout/infsntry/Intel analyst during the rest of my guard/reserve time. Let me explore my slender entertainment and education budget for the price of a license. I will get back to you, sir.
@@wlewisiii If it is needet i can help with the license cost.
Damn this brings back memories. I was a M1A1 tanker from 1995 to 2007.
2003-2007 Baumholder
@@michaelcenteno8724
Why would anyone need to show YOU proof of anything?
@@michaelcenteno8724 I have no idea what your talking about, what I'm I making up? I'm just curious as to why you feel anyone needs to prove themselves to you. I'm not claiming anything, I've never been in the military. I came to Chieftains channel as someone interested in history. As quite a bit of his content pertains to WW2 and earlier military vehicles, I enjoy learning of them. I appreciate being called a kid, you sir must be quite old to call someone who is 40 "kid" props to you for living to such a wise old age
@@michaelcenteno8724 You're either a boot or a civilian, either way you need to fuck off
Thanks for serving
Spent many hours in the MCOFT learning switchology as gunner once upon a time. It help out a lot when it came time to qualify on Tank Table 8 for real. Once I had a good bore sight and several rounds on the screen test to sight in my SABOT and HEAT rounds and indexed into my ballistic computer and properly zeroed main gun and computer. I was solid. As a gunner I liked using white hot on my thermals. It was easy to see and track targets.
Love to see some gameplay with an "actual" crew on this.
The game Squad has a 4 player tank mode and there is an excellent video of Karmakut playing it. The amount of communication necessary to fight a tank is something that has to be seen to be believed and i would love to see you do a video on that.
In all combat really. The almost constant communication you do working with your squadmembers in the army makes most streaming gamers seem quiet and introverted =P
As a tank crewman i completely understand what you mean about communication. Over time the crew begins to work as a single unit keeping the tank operating without many words. For example a loader will continue to load the same round until instructed otherwise and simply lets the gunner know when its armed.
We never had a problem with our NBC systems on the M1A1's - and did a lot of "over-pressurized' engagements and exercises in Graf and Hohensfels. We had heard the NBC-system fire rumors, but never experienced one in a long career.
We had one in 2002 1/7 Cavalry Ft Hood night run driver could not get out due to night vision being installed and turret screen installed he was burned to death
@@lawrencehubbard2985 Wow, that is comforting. So if there ever IS a NBC attack, our tankers can either die in place, burn to death, or be forced to flee the vehicle (and then die)?
This is great. Was just sent to a Stryker brigade thats converting to Armor so we dont have any Tanks to train on for quite a while, and all our guys are straight out of AIT. So now we can actually look at whats going on rather than staring at a study sheet for hours on end.
Great video! Thanks for taking the time. *NOTE TO SELF* 'Self, remember the old adage about knowing just enough to get into trouble.'
Having the flying reticle is actually a nice thing to have when you need to switch to manually aiming, because you get used to where the reticle jumps to apply lead which will help you leading a target yourself.
Thanks chief, I’m a scale modeler and really learned a lot from your previous Abrams chat but there are still many exterior components I would like explained
which ones?
The_Chieftain I’ll try and remember when I’m at home looking at my model(working at the moment don’t tell my boss), but thanks to you I know what the crosswind sensor is ( and that it doesn’t need to be warmed 😉)
@@TheChieftainsHatch I think I remember you or someone else mentioning a little handle outside the tank that you pull in case of emergency while you are evacuating, which puts out internal fires? If that's right, couldn't some enemy ground soldier just rush up to the tank, pull it, and mess up the inside of the tank with firefighting foam? I feel like if there happens to be an internal switch to toggle the external one, it makes the outside one pointless!
Yes, but ordinarily, you wouldn't want to let an enemy soldier get that close in the first place. However, in Iraq, we taped over it so it wasn't as obvious.
@@TheChieftainsHatch Ok, thanks. I've been wondering about that one for a while.
By the way, just in case you haven't heard, the M1A1 is being added to War Thunder. It seems to have the same armor values as the 105mm-armed early versions (M1, M1IP) though, is that accurate? I thought they improved the armor with the A1.
Some things never fail to make me smile, this is one of those things! I'm an old crusty Kilo who served on A1's, A2's (certified Jedi Tanker), and the XM1128 MGS. My hands still remember the exact positions of each control with my eyes closed, the scent of the JP-8 and the comforting hum of the Pulse Jet System. Thanks Chieftain, you made this old Tanker happy.
Pulse jet? I suspect you're not as old as you think you are.... My first pulse-jet tank I got in 2006 or so!
As a big steel beasts gamer, the M1 series, FCS for me is both good and bad, it has both thermal and day sight stabilisation. But is blank with the info within the sight, as appose to the challenger 2 that has all the info the gunner needs and the loader selects the ammo, but the TOGS are stabilised by the gun, not the doghouse sight like the daysight.
Hey TD!
I like the M1A1's FCS over the Challenger 2's in Thermal. God forbid you have to shoot at something long range with HESH in the dark.
"Killed you instantly from 2 km away"
I see you've installed war thunder and played at top tier.
Only 2 km? KA50 kill you instantly from like 10km away
it's been 5 years since you commented this. do you still play war thunder?
@@meesamkhan4767 stopped playing after 1k hours 3 years ago: never looked back. Dogshit game.
@@benfennell6842 damn dude fair enough
I think all of the commenters so far have missed something...
There is an "Oh bugger, the tank is on fire" T-shirt!!!!!
Shows you what's really important to this crowd, doesn't it?
I'm glad the designer chose to use a Comet Tank for the shirt.
Came for the tanks, stayed for the "Oh bugger the tank is on fire"s
I know! Just Bought one!
@@KingSNAFU I was thinking that it would've been a T-34 or a Panther after it drives up an incline
Very cool! I've been curious about the computer systems in the m1 since 1979,i got out in '80 so i never knew until just now! Thanks again,Go Armor!
"When you try to laze but your guns goes boom."
This is the sort of hard hitting military terminology you don't learn in school.
Steel Beasts is amazing. I can only imagine how better it would be on VR.
Oh would that be amaaaazing. 😎
You just took me back 20 years ago.
All that's missing is a pentograph trainer and the manual screw range seeting training.
And of course - sight calibration with a bore sight!
Hi, I'm late to the party here, but I'm a former Leo2 A4 gunner. It's been 12 years though, and I was only "in" for a year (regular conscripted service). I think I have some of my old manuals somewhere.
We used Steel Beasts Pro for training too, and I have a copy of SB Pro: Personal Edition. No proper gunner's control handle, though. Haven't played it in ages, as it's not quite the same with a mouse and keyboard.
You know...it's funny, at 26:50, you talk about "emergency mode"...I remember M1 Tank Platoon on the Amiga worked essentially like normal mode (lase the target, lead etc. automatically computed, you'd stay "locked on" etc.), but the PC version, and later M1TP2 on the PC would always work in "Emergency Mode" where YOU are controlling the gun, not the aiming computer. Fascinating.
thedungeondelver I was thinking the same thing! So many happy hours spent on M1TP on the Atari ST 👍
It was fascinating to have a bit of the arcane taken out and a bit of insight into the boxed sort of fighting situation of a modern tank.
Well this is cool. I just saw an M1 on a flatbed trailer heading to the railyard this morning
It's a good sim, love the tactical play when you use it & the scenario designer.
one of the Chieftain's most unique and informative videos (so far).
Man I wish there was a lightweight yet still somewhat meaty M1 sim, like the old M1 Tank Platoon, that was modernized. I liked the feel of that one, yet I also liked that I didn't feel like I had to actually be a tanker or become one to play it. Anyway, great video, Chieftain!
Awesome video, sure did bring back memories. Boy do I miss those old A1's. Thanks for the refresher Chieftain.
The M1A2 is amazing. I started in M60A1s with the optical rangefinder and finished on M1s. No wonder gunnery scores went up.
This video gives a lot of insights that other review videos haven't really provided where they are simply only limited by what's on paper rather than having experience like The_Chieftain
BEST TANK VIDEO ON UA-cam THIS YEAR!!!!
Would expect anything less from tank jesus himself
I really enjoyed this trip down memory lane. I started off on A3 TTS tanks (loved that TTS) and transitioned to the IPM1 then the M1A1HCs. Great video. Even gave me a little UCOFT PTSD!
Just fantastic, I love the hands-on technical descriptions you only get from someone who actually operated the gear out in the field. Please do more long format stuff like this and the WWII doctrine videos.
Question: why does your tank catch fire if you try to turn the NBC system on in peacetime? Is it trying to give you a sample of the warm toasty feeling you can only experience on the nuclear battlefield? I'm guessing it's an air compressor of some sort to keep overpressure inside the tank because other than a wash down system the only other stuff I can think of is passive protection stuff inserted into the armor to keep the armor itself from becoming a radiation emitter and cooking the crew.
This was 10 times as interesting as i imagined when i clicked the thumbnail. But that is Nicholas for you, you go in expecting interesting tank stories and facts from a guy whos voice really should do audiobooks and you come out of it thinking "am i qualified as a gunner now?!?"
Who did the maintenance on your NBC? The alarm will go off if you do not set the pressure release plate right and the NBC system is what controls the temperature. The M1A1 commons we ran in the Marines never “caught on fire.” Not work at all, or if you were lucky to have the cooling vest, freeze you out in either NC 100 degree temp/ humidity Camp LeJuene or 120 shade in desert 29 Palms.
I was in right as the Marines transitioned completely to M1 and as the last group to get any training on M60 series we were referred to as “CDATs” while the OG were “DATs.”
Thank you for the massive trip down memory lane. Might need to buy the software!
I was on M1A1s for almost ten years and it wasn't until well after I retired that I started hearing about M1A1 NBC systems causing fires. In ten years I had never heard of or seen such a thing.
Many thanks Chieftain. I had guessed about round selection ... you had sabot selected then changed the focus of your tutorial during a second. ;) and resumed fire.
Great video took me back to my days in Delta Tanks USMCR as a M1A1 Gunner.
Thanks for sharing- those sounds really bring it all back. Crazy to think it's been 9 years since my last gunnery and even longer since melting away while buttoned up in the Iraq heat. I forgot just how much I've forgotten on the A1.
My Tissue sales would go through the roof if WG'ing used actual tank controls and procedures to fire the gun on target . 👍 Informative as always Chieftain !
I miss being on an Abrams almost every single day. Best job I ever had!
You’ve made this old master gunner happy. You may clear and elevate and report to the AAR shack for steak and eggs.
As a peacetime ex tanker from the M-60 days I agree with what you said about crews situational awareness. Indeed I think we even had a greater view of our inner hull. I was wondering what you think about the Russian T-14 Armata 3 man side by side crew layout in the front hull. To me this is just a little to much video game like.
Have there been any released photos of the interior of that thing yet?
I remember when you first told about the laze-boom anecdote back when you reviewed the T-55
I knew I'd heard it before somewhere.
as an aspiring M1 tanker, i must have this sim it looks awesome!
Lase/Boom. We used to call it "Loud Lasing". Was bad for M60A3 crews transitioning to the Abrams.
Switchology: it's a technical term
Yes, it is a technical term. Are you stating an obvious fact for no good reason, or are you foolishly attempting to make a joke in the mistaken belief that "switchology" is some word coined by Moran?
@@justforever96 jesus man, chill out
I would love to see more of this, this was interesting to see and you definitely sounded like you were enjoying yourself.
NICE!! First time I have EVER seen an A2. First thought "WOW!! They put an M60A3 TTS in it!!!" Of course its higher res and more sensitive and faster to cool down (I hope) but still sure looks like an A3. (should have had that from the beginning, at least the screen)
As an M-1 mechanic I got to do this for real (one time) in Graf. Four rounds: two stationary two moving. Plus fire the Coax on troop targets. Training rounds of course. Still had to index.
Ah our boy is using some software I might have heard of somewhere......
God knows where...
@@TheChieftainsHatch TGIF on Friday nights. Also, I laughed when you forgot to reindex the ammo.
@@TheChieftainsHatch ALL M1 tankers are CDATs. M60A1 and earlier are DATs.
Timothy Sielbeck or TWATS
I thought they were Dinotankers
I’m pretty sure the azimuth indicator on the Panther’s cupola is so the commander can more easily call out targets to the gunner, who also has an azimuth indicator (and a lack of a periscopic sight)
You missed the point. I don't need my own azimuth indicator to instruct the gunner to look at his azimuth indicator and traverse to 2 o clock.
@@TheChieftainsHatch I still think its a nice thing to have regardless, but that's just my 'casul' non-tanker brain going "ooh neat".
@@crativ3 Guess the keyword is "with experience, you can tell". Okay, key sentence... I can see that why one who trained well would not need it, but I can imagine that for me for example, who barely put his ass into a tank for a few minutes, under a serious stress it would help me a lot to just look up and "Uh, the shiny number-ring says three".
Of course, the army that needs to field me as a TC is pretty well f*cked azimuth ring present or not, but still.
@@TheChieftainsHatch But with the azimuth indicator you can tell him that he should traverse at 2.25 o clock which is a lot more precise than estimating that the vehicle is somewhere between 2 and 3 o clock without the indicator. Also if the target is moving, you can update the informtion more precisely as well, since when the turret is turning it's hard to tell him the exact position.
You can, but in practice, you still don't need to. The point is to get it close enough that it is in his field of vision and he can do the final lay himself, you don't have to get the reticle onto the target for the gunner. Even today, you see only a simple 12-point clock for the gunner's reference in a Bradley or M1. (Why it's not in the SB compartment, I'm not sure)
Ah man I would love to see you actually play a couple of missions on this !
Very interesting, thanks for the tour!
I wonder if all the technology makes life really easier in an intense combat situation compared to the simple stuff of WW2 vintage. Lots of stuff that could go wrong if you hit the wrong button in a hurry.
It does, and crew get drilled till hitting the wrong button becomes very unlikely.
I was in aviation, but have a big interest in tanks. "Switchology" is an interesting thing. When I first looked at an aircraft cockpit I was convinced that I would never learn all the switches. In no time at all, not only did I know what all the switches did, I could also reach out and use them without looking or even thinking about it.. and I knew what was happening with each function at a very deep and granular subsystem level. I no longer thought in the terms of "switches and buttons" but in terms of "actions and functions". My muscle memory was calibrated to the switch location and position by what I wanted the bird to do. This is very similar to how a concert pianist or classical guitarist uses their instruments. The wonderful thing about the U.S. Military is that they demand that you not only know how to operate the equipment, but that you become a complete subject matter expert on how the equipment works before you can operate it. If you're interested in an extreme example of that dynamic, take a look into Submarines and what it takes to get the dolphin pin. Tank crews, aircraft crews, sub crews (etc) reach the outer extremes of human physical and mental capability. There's a good book on the subject called "Mozart's Brain and the Figher Pilot.
@@StrongHarm Thanks for sharing your experiences, it was an interesting read!
Note the various lead displays when going from normal (sight aims at target but gun -- and the entire turret -- moves sideways to handle lead if the target is moving) to emergency (no lead or elevation applied so the gunner has to do it himself using the information displayed from the computer results or "SWAG" if necessary). This also applies to the aiming of guided missiles, though they automatically try to move to wherever the computer controlling them tells them to go. Many of the original US naval guided missiles, such as the beam-riding version of TERRIER developed in the late 1950s, were very simple as to their flight path: They tried to stay in the middle of the radar tracking beam on the target being generated by the modified dish-type tracking/controlling director radar, one director per target, so no lead angle was possible here too. This was OK if the target was coming more-or-less directly at the firing ship, but if the enemy was trying to, say, destroy the task force aircraft carrier and your ship was well off to one side of the enemy-to-carrier line-of-sight, you had a major problem in that the target would be moving very fast sideways and your missile would have to fly a curved-hockey-stick-shaped trajectory as it got closer and closer to the target and had to fly more and more sideways rather than forward, in a tail-chase trajectory. At some point, depending on the range and the speed of the target, there simply would not be enough time to move forward and sideways simultaneously and when that happened, the target was simply not engageable. This was the major reason that semi-active and fully active homing weapons (TARTAR and the later versions of TERRIER and the current Aegis naval guided missile systems, among others) replaced beam-riding designs -- TALOS was a hybrid in that it had a separate beam-riding controlling transmitter and could guide the missile as if it was on the end of a fast-lengthening fishing pole controlled by the FCS computer while the separate tracking director stayed on the target, so it could hit sideways-moving targets within some rather wide target speed capability; later, at very long range, even this separate beam-riding system was no longer viable and a semi-active homing nose antenna keyed to the tracking radar frequency was added, as a further hybridization of that oldest of US Navy guided missile systems. Handling sideways-moving targets even with self-aiming guided missiles is a non-trivial thing...
Ammo question, maybe for comments here, maybe for another video. For WW2 stuff it keeps getting mentioned that the main round for tanks was the HE round, supporting infantry, destroying machine gun nests, etc. And that the anti-armor rounds were comparatively less needed. Is that reversed nowadays? The rounds we saw here and saw are the two most important positions on the switch are both anti-armor rounds. What does the Abrams have for plain old HE / area targeting / anti-squishy thing ammunition? Is that the "mpath" or whatever the other one was? What sort of ratios do the various rounds get taken out in, either back in the day or currently?
For the A1, the only two rounds initially available were Sabot and HEAT. To this day, the US Army has no HE round in active service (though the Marines have bought some). The thinking, as near as I can figure out, was that the .50 and 7.62 were good enough for most things, a HEAT round does have a secondary fragmentation effect for something which required burst, and the Bradleys with their 25mm which would be nearby would cover the rest.
It's something which the US is getting away from, the new AMP round is going to be highly-multi-functional with a good bust capability and a smart fuse.
@@TheChieftainsHatch Any thoughts as a historian and tanker on the Army's move away and now back towards HE? Were you ever in any situations where an HE round would have made things easier?
The current HE round is MPAT. It is fully replacing heat. Its essentially what you are looking for. For soft targets like trucks and troops you would use machine guns, light armor fortifications and helicopters MPAT, tanks you use sabot.
@@whisperchainsaw102 does it stand for Multi Purpose Anti Tank round?
Watched a few videos of the German DM12 MPAT, very formidable round!
amazing vid thanks! Im surprised that so much detailed info is available for the public with versions that are still deployed
Hey Chieftain, we still use the same Blueforce tracker, or at least at Kuwait we do. I haven't seen anything newer or updated at least (19D Cav Scout here, Bradley Driver)
Super, super cool video, and incredibly informative. Thank you very much. That was 110% awesome to watch.
Having "played" steal beasts I can say I liked the Leo's system a lot better, you had to hold a manual lead button which meant if you lazed something your sight didn't jump nor did your gun, you'd laze until you were satisfied with the reading, then hit the lead button which would work essentially the same as the Abrams FCS. The optics also seemed superior for both the thermals and the regular sights on the Leos. Which makes sense too since that's what the Germans are famous for with their optics since ww2, and the fact that the Leo can't exactly take a punch too well, its probably better that it can at least see well.
What do you mean the NBC will set your tank on fire?
Yeah I want to hear the story on that lol
The NBC air filters are very prone to clogging. When the clog they get so hot they can catch fire.
@@georgiabowhunter So, like how long would they be good for in a European environment?
@@StromBugSlayer probably long enough to last the life expectancy of a tanker in a full war in Europe.
@@StromBugSlayer It's more that nobody bothered servicing the filters stateside. I can't remember how long they were rated for in an actual NBC environment.
This was more entertaining than it had any right to be. This isn't a game, it's a bland simulator. And yet I'm enjoying watching the chieftain play it.
Very informative. Real world knowledge right there. Could you show us the starting procedure of the Abrams when he is cold and dark ?.
Turn on the Master Power and push the start button. That is all there is to it.
That's it ?. Huh@@clmccomas
Using the laser rangefinder with each shot activates the "soft kill" system (as you English people say) on the car you are aiming at. I know you haven't fought symmetrically for a long time, but this system exposes the position of the car. I am most interested in how your battlefield management system, command, fire control and target designation works. between vehicles, e.g. at the platoon commander level.
Why is it marked Helmet on that shroud over the unity sight? Are you supposed to hang your helmet on that handle looking thing or what?
Technology is wonderful. A video like this but with the Renault FT would be 3 minutes with the most advanced switch being the turret ring brake and your fire control system being the Mk I eyeball
Very cool seeing this level of detail.
Coming back to this video years later after joining the army, I have solidified SWAG as a legitimate term for manual estimation of target lead within my old company and I will continue to spread the gospel.
Good man
I look very much forward to the inside the hatch to find out the rest of the user manual on how to start, maintain and operate an M1. :P
This was very interesting, big thumbs up!
I would sure like to see a similar video about some post-WW2 Soviet tanks like you mentioned. It would be neat to see how they compare to the Abrams.
Laze booms sound hilariously terrifying 😂
Nice. I was an M60A1 RISE Passive gunner when we retrained on the M1A1 Common. I have several hundred rounds of experience with the 60, but only a couple of dozen on the M1. Unfortunately, retraining was the last time I would ever gun. This is ringing some distant bells, especially with the reticle jumping around.
I remember thinking that I wasn't shooting any faster or more accurately with the M1 than with the 60. I felt the computer was not helping me and only getting in my way. However, "Emergency" mode is "normal" on a 60. Good experienced 60 gunners learned to get a feel for where the round is going to go. As an experienced gunner, I don't think the M1 helped me to put steel on target at all. However, I think you could take a gunner with only a moderate level of experience and with the computer's assistance get him firing at expert levels. The down side is that he thinks of emergency mode as... well, only for emergencies.
I also remember that I hated the UCOF. That damn thing was harder to gun than a real tank, and in my opinion that taught the gunners bad muscle memory. Just put me in the tank and let me shoot. Nothing beats hands on live fire.
Would it be fair to say it might be more beneficial to train M1 gunners almost exclusively for emergency mode so they'll not feel out of water when they do need it? Seems to me training for the worst case scenario would be better for overall skill.
@@Birdy890 No, unfortunately you can't do that either. When the bullets start flying for real, you want your body to be able to react without thinking. In "normal" mode, once you get on target you let go of your cadillacs which dumps the old ballistic solution, regrasp them, hit the lase button to get a range, and then fire. They used to call this, "Dump, Lase and Blaze" These motions should be automatic. If you training exclusively in "emergency" mode, then your body would not learn to execute those actions subconsciously.
However, at the same time I feel that they didn't emphasize training in "emergency" mode enough. I think the ratio should be no lower than 2/1 normal to emergency and no higher than 5/1 for every round fired. 3/1 feels about right to me. When we trained, they didn't want us using "emergency" hardly at all. That may be because all of us were previous 60 crewmen and they wanted to beat a new skill set into us. Whatever the reason, I hope that they have reevaluated their thinking, but knowing how the military works, I'd doubt it's changed very much.
@@maingun07 Thanks for the detailed reply, quite interesting.
@@Birdy890 Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I'm not receiving reply notification consistently.
Starting phase 1 training next week for Royal Armoured corps, hopefully be a challanger crewman. Good video
I love your long commentaries
Great video! Would very much like to see other tanks from this point of view.
I can almost smell the freshly ejected afcaps.
I sooooo miss the old Microprose M1 Tank Platoon III!!!! It was never a full sim like Steel Beasts, but it was not an arcade game either. I knew some of the game's developers back then. And when at the E3 convention at that time, the guys told me what was coming. M1 Tank Platoon III. And it was not only going to be more advanced, but they were planning on integrating a new Apache Gunship game to work together with M1 Tank Platoon III. So they were about to create a combined arms ONLINE multiplayer game system, years before COD or BF even began. We were going to be in for a heck of a lot of fun,....... Until Hasbro bought out Microprose. Because Hasbro did not like any "violent" games, they fired all the military game (and MechWarrior) developers, and focused solely on more Pokemon junk. So thanks to HasCrap, military online games were set back years, until the COD/BF games started. But neither were like a genuine tank combat game like M1TP series. And just imagine if allowed to continue, what we might have had today!
Take a look at the armor in the game Squad. Needs 3 players to staff the tanks though...
I miss the old Microprose days. They kept my Amiga busy back in the day. There is a lack of realistic but accessible sims these days.
@@mstevens113 indeed. In fact, other than Steel Beasts, all other tank combat games (War Thunder, World of Tanks, and Armored Warfare) are developed by Russians, and with barely hidden bias! So truly wonder what could we have had today, from Microprose, if HasCrap hadn't destroyed them? If M1 Tank Platoon III and Apache Gunship 2 had come out, and had the integrated online multiplayer system perfected (again, way before anyone else even thought of it), just imagine what we could've been playing today!!!! All destroyed for the sake of more Pokemon.......
So THAT'S what happened to MechWarrior.
@@drrocketman7794 well, partially. When HasCrap shut down the "violent" games of Microprose, Microsoft Studios actually bought the franchise. It was after that, MechWarrior disappeared. But it is coming back soon! MechWarrior 5 is being developed now, already has videos on UA-cam.
M1A1 coming to Warthunder next patch. Very excited. I know it's not a sim, but it's fun.
Another killer video You can certainly tell he has rolled in that Tank more than a min or two lol
.Id like to get that sim. I wonder if at close range is the coaxial still used as a ranging aid. If im not mistaken. The voice of the T.C. in the program Is none other than R Lee Ermey. Moran mentioned the accuracy of the Ma Duce. In Vietnam Marine Scout Sniper Carlos Hathcock. Upon realizing the Cyclic rate of the .50 cal allowed single round fire. Took the scope from his rifle, mounted it on the .50 that was at a O.P on the side of a Mountain. It gave him command of the entire valley. So accurate in fact He spotted a young man walking his bicycle ladden with bags of AK mags. He was able to 1st shoot the bicycle ripping from the mans hands and only when the enemy grabbed a AK and stared shooting wildly, did he then shoot the VC. I forget the range but well and a away of his Winchester M70 in .308 effective ability. He wrote it was the longest kill shot he made the entire time of his tours. To think. This weapon has been in America's service. Long enough that great grand children can relate with stories told to them about its awsome power. As they too fielded one in their deployment. Its been used as a infantry support weapon. Anti aircraft.Google quad .50 fireing videos . As the main guns on aircraft giving us the term.The whole nine yards as that was how long the belt in a WWII fighters wing mounted guns were. Im not sure if all were but the P51s were 9 yards long.
get that sim here if you like: www.esimgames.com
Interesting. Except people have been saying "the whole nine yards" since the 1920s, so obviously bullshit. If anything, US pilots adopted the phrase as fitting their circumstances and popularized it. But that smacks of something someone made up out of wishful thinking.
@@justforever96 Look it up. Started with the Army Air Corps during WWII . I have known this from reading actual books and things written by pilots to which several used the term in both theaters Europe and the Pacific. This has been common knowledge among Military Aviation members and those who study its history and well known Pre internet. However in the south there was a term used The whole six yards . As early as 1911.Your point could still be valid because the .30 Browning 1919 The model number is the year of adoption into service so was in use in the 20s and its belt was also the same length.
@@justforever96 I know its a long shot seeing how your name is pretty common. I went to high school and played in a garage band with a Bill Walker up in Va. Va Beach. In or around 85 LOl I know its a very long shot but figured what the hell.
i always thought the azimuth rings in the panzers gave you an exact position on the horizon to yell at your gunner to find the next target quickly
Amazing video buddy! Sorry I haven’t been in touch for our collab! I’m on a army promotional course right now so I’m super busy. Stay in touch! 👍
Promotional as in...getting NCO rank?
RoninTF2011 yes
@@_Matsimus_ ; All the best for that! Waiting for the "Reporting with new rank" video :-).
that was fun. i would definitely look forward to seeing something with one of the other tanks in there. Perhaps "the challenger" could help do one on a chieftain or other brit tanks? his video tour of a chieftain is a great video.
i would like to say, it looks like you are still pretty good at that.
Another good thing about the lack of horizontal stabilisation on the A1 is that it probably subconsciously teaches the gunner about the correct lead should they ever need to use the auxiliary sight. But that’s just a theory of mine obviously and I’d probably guess the training they receive negates this benefit.
I highly doubt I will ever be in the no doubt extraordinary poor position where I would need to operate the fire controls of an M1A1 or A2 MBT, but I found it no doubt quite interesting to learn about it anyhow.
Target, cease fire! Brought back some memories there!
I would love to see the others too :) It's a great tool and great way to see things in action. Museums don't seem keen on the 'lets go drive and shoot' concept.
Great video, thanks. 2 things occur to me. One, it really seems like there should be some way that the gun could know what's loaded, so you don't make the selector-mistake in real life. Maybe by weight, or some mark on the back that something could OCR on the way into the breech, I don't know. Secondly, if it's common practice to use the IR sight to find hot-spots during the day, then change to visual to take a better look at the target, it would be nice to have an overlay option where you see the daytime view, but anything that would normally show as a an IR hot spot ( with a dial to adjust what the cutoff parameter is ) could be overlaid in some bright color on the normal image ( mirrors, AR, whatever ). Could help spot things more quickly... ?
Thank you very much for doing this!
Was really a nice insight.
The recticle in the gunners primary sight is very faint, most of the time I couldn't see it.
Does the laser work in snow or heavy rain I wonder. And how do you deal with wet heavy snow settling on top of the tank, is there some means of clearing it during a blizzard?
I imagine that the procedure for cleaning snow off of the top of the tank goes something like this, "Loader, go out and clean the snow off of the top of the tank! And be sure to close the hatch behind you, it's freaking cold outside".
@@Riceball01 hopefully with no one shooting back
I was an m60a3/m1/m1a1 tanker stationed in Germany, fort Carson Colorado and Iraq. Snow is generally not an issue as (if it works) the turret heater stays fairly warm and snow doesn’t stick very well. It tends to melt. However if you are unfortunate enough to have a non operational heater then you just sweep it off the sights and deal with snow all over everything else. The heat from the engine tends to warm things nicely too. A turbine engine puts out an amazing amount of heat and even the 12 cylinder diesel in the 60’s was fairly warm.
Use the ballistic doors to wipe off the snow.
@@Sabre70 thanks for the reply I thought of the question when I realised how restrictive the vision was as Ive never been in a tank.
G'day Nick, Thanks for that astounding demo. It's gobsmacking to see how tank technology has advanced since 1916. A couple of squadrons of M1s would have cleaned up the nasty Nazis at Kursk in an afternoon. OK they'd probably have to re-arm because of the sheer weight of numbers but I reckon you'd be 'home' in time for evening tucker! For an old techno-idiot like me; the 'real' simulator is easier to grasp than WoT! (Does that real simulator have a Mac version...ha ha?) Please do more of these and, well, more of anything. You're good at it. Also been enjoying your vids with that young lady who talks fast. Hope to see you 'in the tracks' some time soon. Cheers, Sir! BH
Funny how similar it is to the merkava fire control system.. does bring up memories..
Same company behind them maybe? Or perhaps most FCS are very similair in functionality?
@@lavrentivs9891 I dont think same company made those FCS but maybe the knowledge was shared. the FCS don't look identical between the tanks but the operation is very similar
Awesome video! Should do a followup on the Loaders and Drivers positions!
In the real M1A2 SEP V2 you can tell when you put the wrong lead in because the reticle "leans" when you are traversing in that direction. Also with the SEP V2 with the thermals it is scan on 3 shoot on 13. The 3 and 13 are optical zooms, while 6, 50, and 25 are digital zooms.
The version he uses is not the M1A2 model. Its some of the M1A1s. The M1A2 is available in steelbeasts too...and it has the features you mentioned
@@RoninTF2011 Watch the entire video. He talks briefly about the m1a2
When I was sweating buckets in the drivers seat at Fort Irwin it didn't think it was as cool as I do today.
It really was cool.
OOOO The chieftains office looks exactly how I imagined !!
This guy knows h is shiznit. MIGHT have made it through Master Gunner School back in the day.
4:00 - The azimuth ring in Panther is for giving precise target data to the gunner. Pretty important with narrow gunner's sight FoV and no commander's override, especially if there's no easily identifiable target (e.g. just some bushes), and for indirect fire.
T-55 and the like still have this in the manual - even though they do have commander's override. It is much faster and easier to just say a number (that you see in front of you) for what you want shot than wasting your time and attention guiding him.
That is exactly what I said. It makes sense in a tank where the gunner is effectively blind unless someone puts him on target, and you'll notice he also has an azimuth indicator.
You should try out squad. Its more arcady than this sim, but it is pretty good. The tank sights are 60% accurate (maybe more or less, likely less). Squad is a balance between arma, this and any other arcade game ya can think of
Fascinating, I really enjoyed that.