Inside the Chieftain's Hatch: XM808 "Twister"
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- XM808 was a proof of concept vehicle created without requirement by Lockheed Missile and Space. Three were built for the Army for testing for lunar operations, the fascinating armed and armored version is found today at the US Army Armor and Cavalry Collection, Ft Benning, GA.
Thanks to the ACC and the Patreons for making the trip possible.
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I may not have been entirely serious about the lunar operations bit.
Fuel economy: Awful. Ammunition supply: Low. Driver: Uncomfortable. TC: Concussed.
Rolling up in a GI Joe vehicle: Priceless.
Sub-contractors would love it! They would turn a huge profit selling spare parts.
For everything else, there's Master Card.
I am surprised a moon version of this was not developed. It would have been perfect for the Moon Nazis in "Iron Sky."
Poor gunner is in a God damn Bonney castle during a avalanche XD
I'd have hated Ad Astra a little less if the stupid moon guerillas had been in a firefight with this beast.
It looks cool from the outside but the footage of it going over rough terrain was incredible to watch and made the vehicle much cooler in my book.
My autistic brain gets off from watching something with that amazing articulation and number of wheel navigate terrain.
PJ a friend of mine worked on and help test this thing when he was in the Army. He said it was impressive for its mobility. After seeing video of it in action I'm impressed... my Toyota won't go where this thing will I know that.
@@Wallyworld30 q
@@Wallyworld30 same
"You see that mountain?"
"Drive over it."
"Yes, I said drive OVER it."
That's one vehicle i would really love to see running under it's own power and steering
🤢
Same principle as WW II German Sdkfz 234 or after 1956 Puma
Most agreed brother! They're cool. And better than the puma trolol
Will not drive far, he said that "fuel economy : Awful"
Meanwhile fule literally waterfalling out the vic trhoughout the video, if you look at the floor under it :D
@@jamesstrickland4622 Damn that’s crazy…
Two transmission shifters so you can put one in neutral. I'm betting they also hoped you could "trailer" the main body and run on the front engine only. The crew cabin would use the rear engine for electrical. So there are situations in which you'd be in rear-neutral idling to run the hydraulics and front engine in drive for roading. Makes it even crazier.
Fair point. Not sure how I missed that. I'm too used to transmission disconnects, I guess
@hognoxious The four wheel drive one? Second engine in the boot IIRC.
20:33 There's a plaque about single engine operation above the steering bypass, so i'd be willing to bet a one time use internet cookie you're right, I also want to know what not to stall check and why
An other interesting thing: it seems like the left transmission can only be put down to 3-4gear, while the right one can be put down to 1-2gear......
Operation on one engine if possible would also probably increase range
This thing is so funky looking. Could show up in a sci-fi movie and look futuristic even today imo 😅
I was thinking aliens colonial marines
I think I still prefer the French crab car for future design.
I am pretty sure that there was a GI-Joe's toy "tank" just like this one
But with a gun turret very similar to the 105 mm on the Stryker IFV.
Super cool BTW.
Definitely looks like 80s sci-fi lol
Made me think of the Landmaster from the movie "Damnation Alley" - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landmaster
Looks like Chieftain has finally found a Transformer to do an inside the hatch on
You look at all the crazy stuff in the G.I. Joe toy line and it starts to make sense in context. Put a driver's position on the front hull and Cobra could have a vehicle that split in two.
It was called the M.A.G.G.O.T., it was tracked, and it split into three parts, two vehicles and a stationary artillery platform.
Looks like an absolute death trap in combat(even as a concept), but I absolutly want one!
Seems like an application of the engineering 20-80 rule. Trying to get an additional 20% of performance you need an additional 80% of design complexity.
Also known as made in Germany.
@@hannesromhild8532 you mean Made in Switzerland.
@@ScottKenny1978 nah massive effort for little gain thats the German way of doing things. When the Swiss make something it just works like a Swiss watch.
@@hannesromhild8532 and every piece is hand machined and polished to a high gloss so it costs 10x more than it needs to.
Aka the Pareto Principle
It reminds me of a logging skidder. If you have never seen a logging skidder, it is a very specific vehicle designed to drag or "skid" logs out of a forest.
For this concept, they added 4 more wheels, changed the chassis a bit, added engineering for higher speeds, added a weapon mount, and painted it green.
Still, if they took this concept and applied more current engineering technologies and safety/comfort features, I could see something like this being very handy for mechanized recon missions in places where good roads are a luxury.
Thank you for going over this machine. I learned something new today for sure. :-)
Log skidders are an interesting bunch, the early ones were literally steam locomotives on treads. The Lombard steam hauler had an unique tread system, a tread within tread to eliminate friction in the days before oil-based lubrication was available, and it worked pretty well. The thing moved at 4mph but could drag 300 tons worth of logs. I should mention I came across an abandoned Lombard deep in the forest I was hiking in some years ago, the thing was pretty intact despite sitting there for nearly 120 years and got me interested in log skidders.
I was just thinking, this thing with a 25mm, .30 cal or a .50cal would be pretty much the ideal recon vehicle. Could even put the weapons in an RWS and it'd still be fairly low profile.
I've always thought about pulling off the skidder arm and arming a skidded with a reckless rifle of something.
I actually built log skidders for J. I. Case. I believe they only built them a few years. Possibly because of high maintenance of that bearing that let the rear "twist" separate from the front. The articulated bearings worked just fine. The rear fenders (the part that you would pull a log into) were a half an inch thick. I dropped one on my finger (only about a two inch drop) and I can say, they are HEAVY!
@@jimnotter6046 What knocks those center bearings (actually bushings) out is people not knowing how to drive them and turning until it slams into the stop pads.It was worse on the old skidders that depended on RPM to pump the hydraulic pumps fast enough to turn quickly.The old Timberjack is a good example of needing RPM's to turn it,one of the reasons those old 353 Detroits were called screaming Detroit Diesel because if you wanted to turn moderately quickly you need to have your RPM's up.I ran a old Tj 240 with aerial bucket for years,another crew had a 225,then later a JD 440 logging or clearing right of ways for power companies in 4 states.The Tj was a much better machine.
BTW, running 25mph (moving from job to job down the road) in a stick steer TJ had a little pucker factor...lol
If I remember right that Tj 240 was 12 tons without calcium in the tires.
I absolutely love this vehicle for no other reason than the cool factor.
What's its Doug-score?
I've always loved this thing ever since I picked up the AFV Profiles book on it in a 2nd hand bookstore. Looking at the mechanical transmission complexity, this has to be a design that would benefit hugely from electric transmission, with the engines just driving generators and a motor in each wheel hub. The ENGASA company from Brazil had a patent on a slighty different form of walking-beam suspension, and sold large numbers of them, both on armoured vehicles like the Cascavel and Urutu, and also on unarmoured 6x6 trucks.
Scammell had walking beam axles on their trucks (lorries) for off road capability in the 1920s The range of motion on them is amazing. And a pivoting front axle too.
@@gleggett3817 Indeed. There's a series of pics of the Twister climbing a vertical wall: all eight wheels are in contact with a horizontal or vertical surface the whole time.
That "Indicators!" was so adorable.
My dad worked at Lockheed during this period. He would bring home brochures about these things full of artist’s renderings of them in action, firing away driving thru a swamp. Great stuff for a kid. 🤓👍🏼
Do you still have them in a form you can scan and upload?
That archive video is fascinating, I hope we see more such stuff going forward.
To me it looks like a vehicle made for patroling on the surface of Moon and Mars, it has that futuristic vibe
"Hinges need a bit of work" he says as he pushes em open with no lube, no extra leverage, without much trouble. 😂 Ive had car doors open worse than that with no where near the age and poor storage
They don't even scream like a demon from hell! Almost disappointing...
Sure you have.
Thank you for the video. I actually got to drive the twister, in the tour video, at Fort Hunter Liggett in the 1970s. It was a blast to drive off road.
One feature was that the steering hydraulics ran off of the front engine. There was a axle pump, on the rear section, that was a backup for the steering, in the event the front engine was not operating, that would provide hydraulic pressure to operate the steering once the vehicle was rolling about six miles an hour.
Hey Chieftain, thanks so much for doing this vehicle! PJ a friend of mine told me about working on and the testing of the Twister when he was in the Army.
From what I see PJ was right about not a lot of room and servicing it was a major pain. He did say it was a hoot to drive and would go just about anywhere you pointed it within reason. I remember a comment about it would climb a tree if it had the traction.
All I can say is... damn that thing is complex... I'll take a Gamagoat thank you. Yes they were still in service when I was in, most in the motor pool disliked them.
This would be interesting in a modern take with maybe a diesel engine linked to a generator and electric motor wheel hubs. Remove all that drivetrain complexity and losses.
And maybe replace it with heat problems..
I'm not sure how bad the heat would be now.
Just what I was thinking. Electrics would simplify so many of the drive train and articulation complexities.
My thought also
Ferry Porsche smiles at you from above, or below.
@@aaronleverton4221 he had a good idea, just the technology wasn't there yet.
That "Twister" looks like it would be hella fun driving it!
After watching Cone of Arc's video on that insane design for a 'baby' assault tank, I can't help but think an armed and armoured production version of the Twister would have actually worked in that sort of role. Probably still not a worthwhile vehicle given the sort of conflicts the US was involved in or expecting, but an interesting vehicle none the less.
"Start rear engine first" I reckon thats the one with the hydraulic pump and possibly generator/alternator/dynamo setup
This is the coolest vehicle I have ever seen! Exactly like the sort of thing I used to doodle as a child with flames coming out of the exhausts. Never knew such a vehicle exists and I want one - so thanks for making this amazing video!
Looks like a concept that would lend itself to being electric, would simplify the drive train a lot.
Yeah, possibly by removing the drive train completely and replacing it with hub motors.
The future of armored vehicles will be very interesting.
Will also allow for better hull shaping for IED resistance.
Everyone seems to forget Electric engines are heavy and expensive.
And hub motors are terrible mostly due to Unspung mass.
Springs make your ride comfortable and shove wheels back onto the road faster than gravity would allow.
Heavy motor wheels take longer to get back onto the ground.
And the amount of electricity to run any 4 of those wheels? High.
The machine as designed could have saved a lot of power losses through better transmission layouts and removing geared power transfer.
However They were trying to print 4 copies on the cheap as proof of concepts, not as final delivery machines.
So easy to print cogs shoved inside some metal bars are easy, but individual drive shafts for all four rear wheels? expensive, but lighter and lower power losses.
@@glenmcgillivray4707 the unsprung weight is a valid point. May require an active suspension instead.
@@ScottKenny1978 and active suspension means more complexity to transfer power.
Thankfully constant velocity joints aren't rare these days. But being careful not to have them rip themselves apart is a complex job of it's own making.
Excellent technical overview of a unique project for which there isn't much information available online - many thanks.
When the Chieftan climbed in there was a placard that said something about single engine operation. I could see a need for separate shifters if for instance one of the engines were inoperable you could shift that transmission to neutral and shift the other transmission into gear.
I am so glad you did a video on this. Finally I see something outside of a hunnicutt book.
Looks like "oh my God, the XM808 is on fire" would be a bit of a bugger to get out of...
I've never even heard of this! Amazing vehicle! ... But the whole time I was staring at the XM800T next to you, waiting on a video for that!
They were putting the finishing touches on this museum while I was at Benning. God did I want to go see this collection.
We need a modern version of this. Maybe not for military use, but it would certainly be a great sci-fi movie vehicle. That, and it would be a great practical effect as well rather than just CGI-ing something in.
Interesting vehicle.
Thank you for showing us another prototype or experimental vehicle.
This is the best video series on UA-cam
Articulated vehicles have a simple "thats neat" factor that is inherent to their design.
Personally one of the coolest things I ever drove was a bigass payloader (or front end loader if you prefer) with articulated steering and tires as tall as I am.
This thing looks great. Genuinely seems like something worthy of further investigation as a concept.
I was perplexed by this one when I saw it at Benning last winter. I guessed that it was much newer than it actually was, as it looked like the kind of thing the Army might want for desert recon. Amazingly impractical for a combat vehicle.
When I served with 2/2 ACR in Germany we had M114A1E1 scout vehicles. You don't have 75 rounds of 20mm although as mentioned there is an iron sight on the gun so you can aim to some extent from inside the turret. The gun is very accurate at least out to 700m as you could hit a 2x4 at that range without using a sight, just the tracer. The ammunition feed includes 25 rounds in a canvas chute from the loader - a separate device from the gun that sits on top of it and mechanically loads it, hence the high rate of fire ability - to the 50 rounds in the ammunition bin. When the gun is down to 25 rounds it will stop firing. You are supposed to load another 50 rounds, from separate ammo cases each holding five rounds, by hooking ten of the five round belts together, starting with the belt in the chute and then connecting that to the 45 round belt in the bin you put together. If you consider it to be an emergency you hit a switch and you can fire off the 25 rounds. However, you then have to take the ammunition loader off, make a chain of 30 rounds (6 ammo boxes), feed the belt through the chute and into the loader then into the gun, fasten the loader down and then hook the 50 round belt in the ammo box to the belt in the ammo chute and you are ready to go. About 30 minutes to do that while standing/sitting/laying on top of the vehicle. You really don't want to fire more than 50 rounds. The gun is good. The feed system not so much. Oh, and the recoil at full auto when you fired off 50 rounds would lift the tracks at the front of a M114 off the ground. Not sure what it would do to that armored car and pretty sure you didn't want to be moving when firing for a reason even better than not hitting anything. Hope I remembered the ammunition reloading. Never did it. Only fired the 20mm once in training 50 years ago. Oh. In 1973 we turned in our M114A1E1 for M551A1 on a 5 M114 for 3 M551 ratio. I would like to see a review of the M551.
Tank yoga and history lessons about armored vehicles that’s what this guys job is haha
What a beautiful vehicle!
Reminds me of a Bandvagn which of course is unarmoured, but can carry a load at a respectable speed on bad roads.
US wheeled tank line incoming to WoT!
Very informative, thanks for the video chieftain
Makes me think of vehicle from a Gerry Anderson puppet show
It's the correct decade
Just glad the wasp nest was abandoned. Would make a good replacement to "On no, my tank is on fire"
Absolutely excellent, I am staggered at how good condition it is in.
Would love to see it run again, it make an interesting pr tool
So awesome to see you doing these little-known oddballs.
Hi Chieftain, are you trying to give WG idea to add a US wheeled LT line which can swim (submerged) and climb to places usually not accessible by other tanks??? ;-)
Shhhh don't give them any ideas
this is an AFV no light tank
Fascinating vehicle and a great talk on it!
Next up, the SheVa tank from John Ringos Posleen war books
Or the hovercraft ones from Hammer's Slammers
@@shorttimer874
Bolos
@@mpetersen6 That would be intersting. He could actually interview the tank :)
I bet they liked it, it looks a hell of a lot of fun. XD
From the front it looks like a Saracen photographed through a fisheye lens
Very cool vehicle :O!!!!!!
For being outside for 50 years, I think it looks quite good
Is this lead up to US wheeled vehicals being added to World of Tanks?
His job is to collect data on historical vehicles, he's done a lot of data collection that never went anywhere.
So yes, but it's equally likely they just don't add them.
Much more likely to see this in War Thunder
Since there is no WOT branding on this video it almost certainly has nothing to do with them. This would be Chieftan's own decision to go there, pay the costs, and play with what he wants to.
@@88porpoise I have no doubt that his entire trip was not possible without Patron funding. I also have no doubt he is collecting direct data for Wargaming. All said and done, making video solo does take a lot of hours, especially on a lot of different vehicles... and I have no doubt that Patron funding allows him to stick around for a few days or a week to make those videos.
But at the end of the day, Wargaming NA pays his health insurance, and his duty to them is collecting and assembling historical information.
@@cheyannei5983 And his vacation is equally his to do as he pleases, such as making content.
Maybe he was looking at it for some reason associated with Wargaming, but at least as likely is just the vehicle was of interest to him personally.
And if Wargaming was interested in this vehicle it likely would have been made in association with Wargaming and feature the World of Tanks branding like many of the Chieftain's Hatch videos. So I would not get my hopes up that this indicates something that is to come.
It's nice to see something that looks familiar on one of these. From what I remember, the 20mm on the M114A1E1 had a metal tube below the gun cradle that you could get a rough sight from looking through the cupola window.
Am thinking if the M114 had just one of those engines it would have been a huge power difference over the Chevy 283. Also, always though it would have been better to keep the .50 instead of the 20mm, which still would have made other apc's stop and think a bit while we ran the other way, the combat load of 400 for the 20 would be gone in 30 seconds if you could link all the ammo fast enough.
For fighting off space aliens? Recoil would be a bitch, but the ballistics! ("Range 10 klicks, set your lead, boys.") ;-)
Wow. That looks so cool. Wish I had one!
A few years ago I got to fabricate a fuel tank for one of these machines. Unarmored version stored at NATC. I have no idea the current status of the thing. But it was fun to crawl all over it and have a good close look at the ideas of the era.
It's worth mentioning that this vehicle came to Fort Benning from Detroit Arsenal, where it was on display.
It's interesting to see how many design ideas got inspired by front-end wheeled loaders...
So I remember in the early seasons of the history channel show Ice Road Truckers THIS VEHICLE was mentioned as the inspiration for an idea on how those semis could bring their own help getting up some of the steeper hills during heavy snowfall.
. Essentially the idea was a vehicle chassis with no cab that could be bolted into the front of the tractor section and pull it up the hill. This concept would be considered easier than the current Buddy system where one semi would disconnect their trailer , and then chain up to the other semi and trailer and then pull it up the hill . They would then have to repeated the process to get the other trailer over the hill then get everyone sorted out again. A device like this could ride along in a half filled vehicle, and then one by one pull everyone up the hill before being returned to its storage. It also could be stored in a small but heated storage location near hills that are chronically bad and deployed when semis are getting stuck
Extremely interesting and informative. Walking beam suspensions are intriguing. Thanks for sharing.
I missed these vids and appreciate that they are still being made, excellent.
0-60 and quarter-mile times are about what my family's VW bus could do, even with only 2 people. An advanced 1970 model, woo-hoo!
Yea, but your VW bus doesn’t weigh 10 tons.
Amazing what a pair of Chrysler 440s could do.
Damn this vehicle can go places, shame it got cut but its understandable seeing its complexity
Quick! Someone make a mod of this in Snowrunner!
I want to drive this on Mars or Russia!
Russia's a planet?
@@mpetersen6
Vostroya!
I made some similar things to this in a vehicle building game called Homebrew: Patent Unknown. Can confirm that articulated hulls and bogied wheels are good fun crawling over rough terrain
I also had one of Dagenham's finest as a first car (with the obligatory faux XR2 spoilers and stripes) and to be fair this thing doesn't look too cramped compared to a Mk1 or 2 Ford Fiesta.
I'm also pretty sure that if you left a Fester outside for as long as this was the only thing left would be a small pile of rust and perhaps some alloys if it was an XR2.
Honestly considering one Chrysler 440 will get like 8-10 mpg in a road car/truck having two of them with that crazy powertrain getting 2 isn't that awful
I put that tan tire on the front left (and front right). Really cool work being done there at the Armor/Cav Collection
Sounds like it'd be fun to drive concept.
18:40 Somebody sat on the glass.
Somebody *definitely* sat on the glass.
I suspect that it was dinged in installation.
Had that happen on a 727 copilot window. We had just replaced it. Tested fine on ground. Inner layer shattered at altitude during flight test.
Much WTF ensued.
Cue much bullshit to get a replacement window to get that bird out of the Hangar, as the first replacement was delivered broken and we finally got a loaner window from FedEx to install on a Northwest bird.
Rear window, with a fantastic view of the radio antenna mount.
First saw these in a 70s book about armoured vehicles. To put the book in its era it featured the MBT 70 and a couple of variants of this as "the future" of US armoured vehicles. Even with its issues, the mobility of this thing still seems like the future of scouting and mobile firepower in mountainous terrain to me.
Wait until Gaijin see this.
I did not know untill today that they had moved the majority of the tanks from the Patton museum/fort Knox to fort Benning. I was at the Patton in the early '90s along with a day at knob Creek machine gun shoot.
Thank you chieftain great video
We had a short lived vehicle similar to that in Germany in the early 70s...the "Gamma Goat"...which my Polish born 1st Sgt called a "Gummy Goat"...it didn't last long in the inventory...or in the memories of the drivers
Yeah I kept thinking it reminded me of the Gamma Goat the US Army used in the late 70s. It seemed cool, but I was always hearing about people getting killed in them when they flipped over - there was a real bad accident in Ft Lewis once; you weren't supposed to catch a ride on them, but a bunch of guys had, which killed most of them when it flipped over...
"Start rear engine first"
My uneducated guess would be that it's because it powers some kind of a pump that pushes fuel through the piping to the front engine?
While you were describing the TCs position all I was looking at was three pieces of 100 mile an hour tape someone stuck on that box to the right about 50 years ago and are still there
After seeing the "after credits" segment I feel that the "origami" tag definitely needs adding to this video
Awesome, Great video. Never heard of any of these
Your typical ATV these days also runs 4-5 psi in the tires, and the sidewalls are super flexi. its mad how that concept was brought forward
Frankly, this really looks like a decent idea. Unrefined perhaps, but I see potential.
That thing looks cool as hell!
This Vehicle (or one like it) was used in the Movie Stipes!
Bill Murray was riding it!
Try this one. ua-cam.com/video/_0UfDoaV4Oc/v-deo.html
Yet another vehicle I had never heard of.
Man this looks like a cool place to visit.
08:28 All I could think of was the Scorpion tank from Halo, lol. Such a cool vehicles!
The classic Chrysler big block is very close kin and would share parts with 440c.i. musclecars of the era. Being a concept demonstrator there was no need to use a diesel for fire-resistance (it wouldn't take much damage to ignite that carbureted fuel system). Other uses of big blocks include the twin-engined M113 concept demonstrator which was seriously quick and fast. Hotrodding was so common that every engineer would have been familiar with those engines and often owned a car or truck running one from that engine family. The XM would have been great fun with a GM Roots-style supercharger which would have been a near direct bolt on with aftermarket parts!
The thing succeeded as a demonstration of wheeled vehicle limitations being excessively complex for what it delivered. "Cool" and "functional" sometimes intersect but with all the real estate taken up by the articulated hull, wheeled suspension etc it's obvious why such vehicles are rare. Thanks to lack of computer modelling we have such fascinating artifacts today when most would have died on the computer before steel was cut. It was certainly leading edge for the era and especially the intend (lunar ops) though the effect of recoil in very low gravity environments would have been interesting.
My grandfather worked for Lockheed in Sunnyvale around this time. I think he was welding nuke tubes though.
Is this the best video The Chieftain has done on any vehicle?
This is insanely cool nick! Can we see more of different types of vehicles like this?
Great work Sir thank you
Thanks for this! I saw one of these on the grounds of TACOM a few years back and I failed to find out what - it - was!
It looks AMAZING and I want to drive it, but I'd either never get in, or get in and not be able to climb out without assistance from a crane.
It's an interesting concept, though. Shame they never picked up on it.
There was a data plate on the bulkhead about single engine operations. Thats probably the reason for dual separate transmission controls
My old body hurts just watching you crawl into it.
Very cool idea. Love that some engineers got to make these.
Made me think of the BV 206, a much more successful vehicle
Had to start the rear engine first because of the hydraulic system was there and powered by that engine. So if you tried the front one you could end up either damaging it or blowing seals. And I think the primary electrical was also driven by the rear engine, all the front was for was for the wheels and axle's there.
Good demonstration of field grade flexibility. Thanks for all your effort.
You learned to drive in A Ford Fiesta... amazing you do not have cronic Knee issues or back issues for that matter.
Thank you sir
a fun video about an interesting vehicle.