@Peter Möller Guten Tag Herr Möller und sonnige Grüße aus Berlin. I just take a mp3-recording from a video with my cell phone and chose this audiofile as a ringtone, please help Yourself.
Top speed of the sherman firefly is 50kmh wich is very fast and the tank weighs 35 tons normal shermans weigh 31-33 tons Max so its 2 tons heavyer than all the other shermans the normal plane engine sherman weighs 31 tons and has a max top speed of 48kmh
A Sherman firefly with the right gun is rare to find. A Sherman firefly with a Multibank engine is even rarer! I got you the Sherman Firefly that has both! Only the best tank porn for you!
Hey Rita I understand why the engine would be ultra rare but why would the mark VII 17pdr cannon be rare as well? That multi-bank sounds great, I've read both good and bad accounts of that engine.
This engine been modified by our mechanical genius, Moriarty. This tank is faster than any other tank in the European theater of operations, forward of backwards. See we like to think we can get out of trouble quicker than we got into it.
It makes sense that the Chrysler multi bank engine is considered one of the smoothest and best preforming. You in essence have a series of inline 6 cylinder engines running in tandem. The 6 cylinder is an inherently balanced engine with a long piston stroke providing low engine vibration and a smooth torque curve.
@@theone5716 Oh I'm sadly Misinformed. I Watched a video recently where a turbo charger had been fitted to a GAAand assumed they were all turbo charged.
@@Marc83Aus it's possible as many drag racers used those as an interesting (and more fuel burning) alternative to the 460 and 462 big block Fords. There's a 1969 Mustang dragster with a GAA tank engine and its on Google.
Apparently the British loved the A57, and dispite the seeming complexity of it, was a reliable engine that gave them good service. Facts which have always surprised me. Thanks for sharing.
AFAIK, The Americans fought shy of the M4A4 and the complexity of the A57 engine and I believe none were ever officially operated by the US army, all were sent to the UK as lend-lease for the British army fitted with the usual 75mm medium velocity gun, not all were converted into the Sherman VC "Firefly". Somewhere around 7,500 M4A4's were made and about 2,000 ~ 2,200 converted to VC Firefly configuration.
It was almost literally 5 car engines welded together, so it acts like 5 separate engines that happened to drive one crankshaft. If two of the five "engines" fail, the tank would still get the crew into cover handily.
The first few seconds of this video appear to show a Sherman driving from the square around the corner where my dad's tank was blown up. (My dad was the driver; Tank commander Capt. McWilliams) the radio operator was killed in the attack. I believe dad's tank was a standard twin engined one (third engine was the 500cc starter engine) I have his original manual sucked away.
I’ve worked on some of these engines before here in the states, (just the Chrysler 6, not the multi bank) its amazing how it kept such a recognizable sound in this application
This is how they SHOULD sound. an awful lot of the stuff you see and hear now days either has new diesel engines in them, or they have peried correct engine that are on their last leg. not running correctly, and or have little to no exhaust left. It's amazing how many of these you see at shows that have period correct engines, but the exhaust manifold gaskets are blow out bad, and the actual pipes are rotted to hell. This is exactly how this machine should sound. Whoever maintains this machine is either themselves a dayum good mechanic, or they have assembled a great workshop/team to keep this thing in "Fighting Shape"
The American military didn’t like these engines because they thought they were far too complex and maintenance heavy. So they lumbered the British with them... who it turned out loved them because despite the complexity they were very reliable engines.
The British along with Chrysler, altered the position of engine ancillaries like the distributors and fuel, oil and water pumps and the various filters to make them easy to access and service and that sorted the motors out.
The M4A4 Sherman and the Chrysler multibank engine deserve more credit than given. Those six cylinder engines were not built for military use but they were available. Chrysler engineers did a heroic job putting together the multibank engine to work in the Sherman. The British were even more heroic taking these unproven weapons and standing up to a better equipped enemy . Thanks to all those who fought for our freedom.
The thing I like to see the most when we enter a city with any WW2 vehicle is the faces of the citizens who doesn't know what's going on :) And of course for all big engine vhehicles where the sounds echo's through the streets...that's priceless !!!
3:50 Cool to see the two of the Top-Dead-Center timing mark pointers (red triangle) on two of the crank ends. Thank you to the people who keep this history alive.
7,499 Sherman's were fitted with this engine along with 109 Lee's, the fact that something like that is rare says a lot about how much WW2 equipment got scrapped after the war, some of the engines probably wound up powering saw mills and the like.
Someone is bound to ask "Why use a bunch of 6-cyl engines? Why not V-8s?" Harry Ricardo figured it all out during WW1 and explained why the in-line 6 ["L6," the "i" is understood/silent... ;-) ] in his 1921 book _The High Speed Internal Combustion Engine_ [remember, at the time, 2k rpm was considered "hi-speed."] It all comes down to balance. This is also why the great water-cooled aero engines of the time were V-12s [two L6's in a V.] Anyway, aside from Ford (flat head) V-8s, all the car manufacturers were pretty much focused on building L6s. So that's why 5 of them in a multibank could fit in the same space as the (normal Sherman powerpack] of the air-cooled radial & use the existing production capacity for passenger car engines that was going unused since nobody was allowed to build/buy passenger vehicles for the war effort ["rationing;" also why all the new cars for the 1st couple years after the end of WW2 looked like pre-war models.] Also, since each L6 had perfect primary balance, it didn't matter that there was an odd number of them...
When Chrysler had a museum in a suburb of Detroit, I got to see one of these engines on general display in the entrance. It is made out of five Plymouth automobile engines of the era. The Sherman tank had three different engines it came equipped with, this one, a big V12 Ford that had been intended to replace the Allison aircraft engine and a radial airplane engine made by Lycomming, I think. All wartime adaptations to get enough power into this machine.
Gives you a sense of how vulnerable tanks are while fighting in city streets. They really depend on the infantry to keep their flanks clear. That multi-bank sounds so good at low idle.
Great shot of that engine. You can see the different distributors for each engine with all the spark plug wires coming off them. Cool. Yeah - with as many Sherman's as they made they had a number of different engine types they used. A lot of the Marine Sherman's were diesels. .
3 роки тому+1
That that engine actually worked is amazing. I mean German equipment gets a lot of stick for beeing to complicated, but this is very complicated and worked anyway :) Also very nice of them to start it and very charming accents all around.
It sounds aggressive as each engine operates individually, but each cylinder of a bank effectively fires 24 degrees before the same cylinder of the next bank does, through all 5 engine banks; all running identical, normal firing patterns, just multiplied in staggered Parallel, = 30 cylinders of 7.5:1 compressive fun !
Many/Most Fireflies have the right cannon. But the Firefly on itself is rare. They did have other engines too, like the Wright Radial and GMC TwinDiesel. But the A57 multibank engine is very rare. Those where replaced mostly by radials when spare supply dried up. So, the combination: Firefly, 17Pdr AND A57 MultiBank is SUPER RARE. You can easily see if a Sherman was originaly build to have the A57 because the hull is longer (more space between the wheelstations). It is the Sherman M4A4 variant.
Love the fact that this tank, from the 1940s, is still around and still working. Most people are unaware that most tanks from the US had auto engines and transmissions in them -- which is why the Shermans with Ford V8s were preferred over other Allied tanks. Easy to use, easy to fix when they broke -- which means easier to get back into combat at the front. Love me the sound of old engines firing up!
"tanks from the US had auto engines and transmissions in them..." Hardly. The water cooled Ford GAA had an aluminum block, aluminum heads, and 4 valves per cylinder with tank usage output around 450 horsepower. It was originally Ford's ultramodern V-12 challenge to the Allison V-12 aircraft engine, but when the US government handed the aircraft engines contracts to Allison, Ford chopped off four cylinders and fielded the finest tank engine of WWII. Sherman tanks had either twin diesel engines stitched together by GM, the insane Chrysler A57 multibank with 30 cylinders, five distributors, and 30 sparkplugs, or a Curtiss-Wright radial aircraft engine, or the Ford GAA. Not one of them was a standard specification automotive engine of the time such as Ford's iron block, flathead V-8. Two of these Sherman tank powerplants were cobbled together auto engines and two were really aircraft engines. All were built to high standards using the American automotive industry's genius for mass production. The US Army went with the gasoline only Wright radial and Ford GAA's since they didn't want to deal with both diesel and gasoline in their supply system. The US Marines, British, and Soviets got the GM diesel Shermans since all three of those military supply chains handled lots of diesel fuel (many British tanks used diesel bus engine combinations, the Soviets preferred diesel engines, and the Navy used plenty of diesel on their vessels that didn't use steam power). The US Army had the luxury of avoiding the 30 cylinder craziness, so they were fobbed off on the British and Soviets. Think about it - the engine is misfiring - which of the 30 spark plugs do you pull first to see if it is fouled? Which of the 30 spark plug cables may have frayed? The Ford GAA was mostly aluminum while the Chrysler A57 was all cast iron. Which mechanics are volunteering to help pull out the old, heavy, bulky Chrysler engine and put in the new one? By the way, the boom on the recovery vehicle is leaking hydraulic fluid (again), so it won't be able to handle all the weight safely. Good luck with the A57 swap. Maybe they can figure out which of the 30 cylinders is not working properly back at the depot.
Did the British paint part of the gun like that on their Fireflies? It would make sense, as it would make it harder to distinguish from a regular Sherman (thereby making it the first to be targeted). And why was it called the "Firefly"? I didn't think they had those in the UK.
Funny how the variant with the most moving engine parts wound up becoming one of the most reliable. My fave will always be the Conti, but the Multibank is special and weird and has its own sort of magic. Love seeing them in action, and in the right tank no less!
As of. Now Jan 2020 there are still. Several Sherman’s in active service in Mexico as armored recovery vehicles and a few Central American countries .keep a variety of Sherman’s as infantry support. Tanks with I believe upgraded Diesel engines and 90mm. And or 105mm guns so a long service life
They did also use a radial air cooled aircraft engine also that would exceed 50 mph in the firefly. Crew said it was freezing from the airflow produced.
..because the air-cooled engined pre-Cold War tanks used the crew compartment as the dust filter & inlet/intake (to also act as a crew cooling system).. not from the tanks travel speed.
Wait, if I understood correctly he was saying that the Chrysler A57 W30 is quieter and smokes less than the Ford GAA V8? Wow, who would have ever guessed that an engine with 22 fewer cylinders would smoke more AND be louder lol. I do imagine the Ford GAA was more reliable though, yeah?
In some ways Ford would be simpler or easier to service, then again, ...Ford, does things its way. (Plus the joke of FORD being Forever Ordering Repair Deliveries) Also using the Chrysler straight 6, 4 Litre, its engines and parts were used across America in many many roles, machineries, vehicles and industrial applications, and in other parts of the world too. So while the A57 could be a heavy 2 half ton pain to lift out to work on, actual spares availability and cannibalisation for parts was easier than with other engines - which is why the British & Commonwealth/Empire forces loved it; a few damaged engines would provide plenty of spares for others, if that damaged unit couldn't be repaired itself, plus unlike the other engines, each engine bank was mostly its own individual that didn't need the others to run on it's own; ...only the radiator (in a later version there was a centralised shared water pump) and central main oil supply to each engine's own individual oiling system, all else being as if each engine was a totally separate unit.
So i have a question, if one part of the engine got shot out or malfunction'd in anyway, would it cause the other engines to cease operation as well or would the sherman's engine go into like a limp mode, where 4/5 or 3/5 engines would rotate or work, but at reduced performances? I could see something like this multi-bank engine working out really well for the British just because if one engine went out, it could save the lives of the crew by allowing them to relocate a short distance away from the firefight, as to where standardized Sherman or tigers with only one in-line drive and engine would just be shot out?
I think this is the specific reason the brits liked it so much and the americans didnt. The US originally rejected it for carburator issues. The Brits on the other hand, praised it for its "refusal to die", wich sounds like what you describe. And it certainly wouldnt be mechanically impossible for the engine to work without one or two of the cylinder banks failing.
Hahahaha, I love how the the guy was like "oui oui, petit peu" (or however you spell it). I'm guessing the driver was like "wtf?" since it means "yeah yeah, just a little bit". Then you see the older guy coming in on the right side of the frame at 4:06, probably coming to investigate, followed by the "Oh snap, busted!" act at 4:19 :D
That arm cross means "end" or "Stop", Mr William, which you can see on the previous video was asking me with the marshalling sign (same that you use to help moving or parking tanks) if I was satisfied with how long the engine run for us. :3
Rita Sobral aww. Here I was quietly giggling at the thought of him allowing the tank to run on a whim because of the rare occasion of meeting a fellow tank enthusiast :P.
The aircraft engine he is talking about is the Wright R-975 Whirlwind and I could hardly blame tank owners for swapping out Multibank engines when they broke, the Wright not only were much more numerous, there was about 60,000 engines built, they were also a hell of a lot simpler to maintain, although you did have to remove the engine if the bottom plugs fouled, presumably they are cheaper to buy so for many it is a no brainer to put the old multibank on the shelf and run with the simple option. The Wright is an air cooled engine so tolerances are wider and being a radial oil would collect in the bottom cylinders when not running hence why they smoked so bad on startup apart from that the logic for using an aircraft engine is that they are going to be the best power to weight ratio off the shelf.
Five forklift engines lots of torque and reliability and lasting. Slow revving real long stroke small bore side valve. My 38 Plymouth could take off in high gear if you slipped the clutch a bit. Perfect for a tractor or a tank. Just put enough together for the power you need.
So what's the 2 large towing eyes on the engine support frame for? Surely not for pulling it backwards... you wouldn't want to have to open the engine doors to tow it... or are these to help facilitate removing the engine?
Chrysler was hired to figure out how to manufacture tanks on assembly lines. They were using surplus R975's while Continental made more. Chrysler knew they couldn't produce enough to meet demand so designed the A57 so they could use their stock of assembled L6 engines and parts in their warehouses. The US Army wanted only Wright radial engines in their tanks to simplify training and repairs so the War Department tried to get the Soviets to use them. The Russians refused to so they got GMC Diesels while the British got stuck using the monster motor. Chrysler engineers work with British tank mechanics to make it as easy and fast as possible to remove then reset the A57 for servicing outside the engine compartment. Chrysler designed a lift ring that held the motor level while being disconnected then lifted to a certain height where the lift hook automatically slid forward so the back end tilted down so the front would clear the radiator when pulled out. The assembly was set on a frame for servicing which allowed the lifting ring to act the same when picked up by the truck crane. The R975 and Ford GAA were removed after 150 to 200 hours of run time for inspection and refurbishing. The A57 could run longer before that was needed to be done with many running for 1000 hours without having any problems.
It's not only a multibank engine, but a multi crankshaft engine,. It is 5 straight six flatheads joined in a circle and meshing with a central gear on a shaft that drives everything. Weird eh!
More a semi-flattened pentagon/pentangle doing 'the splits' than a circle, but each bank's firing pattern was circular being staggered apart from the next bank in sequence by 24.5 degrees - i.e: sequentially parallel firing order.
@@razor1uk610 Yes, we know it's not some sort of a radial engine and that the cylinder banks are all at different angles above the horizontal, but the cranks shafts have to be arranged in a circle otherwise they wouldn't mesh with the central sun gear, would they, dumbo.
Hey if the community is interested in those I can post it as well! I am joining in another convoy this month and can record better video for you if its there!
Thanks for my new ringtone...
A man of culture.
@Peter Möller Guten Tag Herr Möller und sonnige Grüße aus Berlin. I just take a mp3-recording from a video with my cell phone and chose this audiofile as a ringtone, please help Yourself.
@Peter Möller Ihr Deutsch ist eher nicht schlimm, danke für Ihre Mühe!
Yes true
Top speed of the sherman firefly is 50kmh wich is very fast and the tank weighs 35 tons normal shermans weigh 31-33 tons Max so its 2 tons heavyer than all the other shermans the normal plane engine sherman weighs 31 tons and has a max top speed of 48kmh
Thank you for not putting music over this lovely engine's sounds.
No problem! Thanks for watching!
Zakiriel .
What are you talking about? This *is* music
A Sherman firefly with the right gun is rare to find.
A Sherman firefly with a Multibank engine is even rarer!
I got you the Sherman Firefly that has both!
Only the best tank porn for you!
I lost!
@@Krwekrw Missing you! Hoping to see you soon on Stream! (Getting my ass back into it!)
@@RitaGamer Possibly once i see you online :-)
Hey Rita I understand why the engine would be ultra rare but why would the mark VII 17pdr cannon be rare as well? That multi-bank sounds great, I've read both good and bad accounts of that engine.
@@bradleyhancock8719 Not many fireflies have the right cannon
This engine been modified by our mechanical genius, Moriarty. This tank is faster than any other tank in the European theater of operations, forward of backwards. See we like to think we can get out of trouble quicker than we got into it.
Thanks oddball....I enjoyed the Kelly's Heroes nod.
That one was a M4A3 with a Ford GAA 😉
“I only ride em, I dunno what makes em work”
88mm Shell from Tiger was quicker, as we saw xD
Piece if crap.
🤣
It makes sense that the Chrysler multi bank engine is considered one of the smoothest and best preforming. You in essence have a series of inline 6 cylinder engines running in tandem. The 6 cylinder is an inherently balanced engine with a long piston stroke providing low engine vibration and a smooth torque curve.
@ Different models used different engines, some models used a radial aircraft engine, and later shemans used an 18 litre turbocharged V8.
@@Marc83Aus the V8 was a 18 litre Ford GAA. Not turbocharged, but fuel injected and DOHC
@@theone5716 Oh I'm sadly Misinformed. I Watched a video recently where a turbo charger had been fitted to a GAAand assumed they were all turbo charged.
@@Marc83Aus it's possible as many drag racers used those as an interesting (and more fuel burning) alternative to the 460 and 462 big block Fords. There's a 1969 Mustang dragster with a GAA tank engine and its on Google.
@@Marc83Aus there was the Sherman with the Detroit 6 71 diesel in it.
"if you want? we can start him up?!"
how cool can a guy be :D
*heartbeat raises*
Willem was a star!
My father was a Sherman tank commander in the New Zealand Division in Italy, 1944/45. This would bring back some memories for him.
A girl that likes tanks? Even rarer than the Firefly lmao
I genuinely had s sensible chuckle reading this. Thanks for watching! 😁👌
Girls und Panzer, there alot of girls(anime) , who like tanks
@@RipCreditsFMJ drawings
@@lol-un6nl don t hurt me pls.
@@lol-un6nl lol
Apparently the British loved the A57, and dispite the seeming complexity of it, was a reliable engine that gave them good service. Facts which have always surprised me. Thanks for sharing.
If one L6 is reliable, 5 of them have to be 5 times as reliable, right? %-D
AFAIK, The Americans fought shy of the M4A4 and the complexity of the A57 engine and I believe none were ever officially operated by the US army, all were sent to the UK as lend-lease for the British army fitted with the usual 75mm medium velocity gun, not all were converted into the Sherman VC "Firefly". Somewhere around 7,500 M4A4's were made and about 2,000 ~ 2,200 converted to VC Firefly configuration.
It was almost literally 5 car engines welded together, so it acts like 5 separate engines that happened to drive one crankshaft. If two of the five "engines" fail, the tank would still get the crew into cover handily.
The first few seconds of this video appear to show a Sherman driving from the square around the corner where my dad's tank was blown up. (My dad was the driver; Tank commander Capt. McWilliams) the radio operator was killed in the attack. I believe dad's tank was a standard twin engined one (third engine was the 500cc starter engine) I have his original manual sucked away.
I’ve worked on some of these engines before here in the states, (just the Chrysler 6, not the multi bank) its amazing how it kept such a recognizable sound in this application
That has to be the quietest tank I’ve ever heard
5 car engines put together
This is how they SHOULD sound. an awful lot of the stuff you see and hear now days either has new diesel engines in them, or they have peried correct engine that are on their last leg. not running correctly, and or have little to no exhaust left.
It's amazing how many of these you see at shows that have period correct engines, but the exhaust manifold gaskets are blow out bad, and the actual pipes are rotted to hell.
This is exactly how this machine should sound. Whoever maintains this machine is either themselves a dayum good mechanic, or they have assembled a great workshop/team to keep this thing in "Fighting Shape"
The American military didn’t like these engines because they thought they were far too complex and maintenance heavy. So they lumbered the British with them... who it turned out loved them because despite the complexity they were very reliable engines.
The British along with Chrysler, altered the position of engine ancillaries like the distributors and fuel, oil and water pumps and the various filters to make them easy to access and service and that sorted the motors out.
This is a later version with one water pump. Earlier there were five and five drive belts! One for each bank.
That laugh at the end really shows your joy at dealing with such an amazing piece of history.
I didn't even realise I had until I started editing the video! Armoured vehicles are my joy in life!
Awesome restoration ,it has a magnificent sound. Thanks Rita for not adding music!!
Wow. 30 cylinders. Didn't know about this engine. I guess the mechanics were in heaven. Thanks for sharing and recording its sound like you did.
its a multibank, so its not 1 engine with 30 cylinders, but 5 engines with 6 cylinders.
The M4A4 Sherman and the Chrysler multibank engine deserve more credit than given. Those six cylinder engines were not built for military use but they were available. Chrysler engineers did a heroic job putting together the multibank engine to work in the Sherman. The British were even more heroic taking these unproven weapons and standing up to a better equipped enemy . Thanks to all those who fought for our freedom.
Well said sir!
The thing I like to see the most when we enter a city with any WW2 vehicle is the faces of the citizens who doesn't know what's going on :)
And of course for all big engine vhehicles where the sounds echo's through the streets...that's priceless !!!
Thank you, Rita.
Beautiful sherman and amazing sound of the Chrysler multibank engine.
In an old magazine Chrysler boasted I t could lose 2/3rds of its cylinders and still move the tank.
I must say, it's odd hearing a 30 cylinder Chrysler engine running on pump-gas! Great video! Shame you weren't allowed inside!
Check this video: ua-cam.com/video/k4A1lqdt8p4/v-deo.html I uploaded the inside of the Firefly before I did the engine.
How many gallons to a mile
@@hisexcellencytrump855 Probably 2.
@@hisexcellencytrump855 3
This vid was the first thing to get me to genuinely smile in a few days, thanks Rita.
I had a 55 Fargo truck sounded a fifth as good. :)
Someone has put a lot of love in that engine, sounds beautiful.
Very much indeed sir!
@no satisfaction Because it is the sound of liberation.
One of these engines is on display at the auto museum in Rogers Minnesota
3:50 Cool to see the two of the Top-Dead-Center timing mark pointers (red triangle) on two of the crank ends. Thank you to the people who keep this history alive.
When you need a loan to change spark plugs
I think the worst thing for spark plugs would be the B-36 bomber. 6 28 cylinder Wasp Major engines with 2 plugs per cylinder = 336 plugs on one plane.
@@jasonharmon7373 I honestly did not know that, and can only pity the poor soul who was tasked with changing all those plugs.
Thank you for the great video of this very rare tank configuration.
The engine sounds wonderful.
It sounds like FREEDOM!
Thank you for the kind words and for watching! 😊
Wow that is a gorgeous sound, thanks so much for posting!
And thank you for watching sir!😊
Wow. A very rare M4 with a working multi-bank engine. Cheers
Very rare indeed sir!
I will be keeping my eye on you....so find us some more tanks.
Very nice video of our Firefly Rita.
Thank you love!
Beautiful sound! The multibank engine was an amazing accomplishment using production passenger car 6 cylinder engines.
Very cool and very rare. Thank the guys for keeping this machine working. Thanks for sharing.
This here is our mechanical genius Moriarty.
I was waiting for him to also talk about how fast it is in Reverse!
That is one of the neatest engine setups ever! Thanks for sharing.
Absolutely amazing find, keep the content coming!
Definitely! thank you so much for watching!
Sherman firefly: "Does anybody knows which direction berlin is?"
Umm...yeah, you take the third Reich
Thanks for the great video! Sounds amazing!
Thank you YT for putting a video in my feed that I actually wanted to see.
Thank you Rita for the great content, you just got a new subscriber.
Aww this is the first thing I read this morning! Thank you so much dear! Anything I can do to make Military vehicle lovers happy!
"sir the engine is no good"
"THEN PUT 5 CAR ENGINE IN IT'
Wow! a tank with a fast acceleration, nice. makes me want to install a NOS system on it and see if it can drift also. thanks for sharing.
Kathleen Shaw
Fantastic story! Thank you for sharing it 😎
the A57 was so absurdly cool, I love that there are some still running.
That is beautiful! Thank you for sharing!
7,499 Sherman's were fitted with this engine along with 109 Lee's, the fact that something like that is rare says a lot about how much WW2 equipment got scrapped after the war, some of the engines probably wound up powering saw mills and the like.
Someone is bound to ask "Why use a bunch of 6-cyl engines? Why not V-8s?" Harry Ricardo figured it all out during WW1 and explained why the in-line 6 ["L6," the "i" is understood/silent... ;-) ] in his 1921 book _The High Speed Internal Combustion Engine_ [remember, at the time, 2k rpm was considered "hi-speed."] It all comes down to balance. This is also why the great water-cooled aero engines of the time were V-12s [two L6's in a V.] Anyway, aside from Ford (flat head) V-8s, all the car manufacturers were pretty much focused on building L6s. So that's why 5 of them in a multibank could fit in the same space as the (normal Sherman powerpack] of the air-cooled radial & use the existing production capacity for passenger car engines that was going unused since nobody was allowed to build/buy passenger vehicles for the war effort ["rationing;" also why all the new cars for the 1st couple years after the end of WW2 looked like pre-war models.] Also, since each L6 had perfect primary balance, it didn't matter that there was an odd number of them...
Beautiful, a firefly rolling trough the streets perfect!
Awesome Rita Thanks so much friend
Soo this is what *"Get some 5 car engines and put them together"* sounds like
When Chrysler had a museum in a suburb of Detroit, I got to see one of these engines on general display in the entrance. It is made out of five Plymouth automobile engines of the era. The Sherman tank had three different engines it came equipped with, this one, a big V12 Ford that had been intended to replace the Allison aircraft engine and a radial airplane engine made by Lycomming, I think. All wartime adaptations to get enough power into this machine.
Gives you a sense of how vulnerable tanks are while fighting in city streets. They really depend on the infantry to keep their flanks clear. That multi-bank sounds so good at low idle.
Rommel said: "The german panzer tank can destroy ten American Sherman's before being destroyed itself.... but the Americans have eleven."
And are cheaper to maintain, recover and repair
@@FMHikari Plus the panzers are prone to malfunction and fuel issues. Source, Kelly's heros.
The USA could out-produce the Germans eleven to one.
And make better tanks, more reliable tanks, and better performing tanks and more survivable tanks.
But like T-34 also :)
Rita you were giddy over this !! I know car girls are rare , but tank girls even more so !!
1) The engine sounds beautiful.
2) I think this may be the first time I have ever seen a Sherman with the headlights on.
5 inline Chrysler 6 cylinder engines put into one big ole block case.
Great shot of that engine. You can see the different distributors for each engine with all the spark plug wires coming off them.
Cool.
Yeah - with as many Sherman's as they made they had a number of different engine types they used. A lot of the Marine Sherman's were diesels.
.
That that engine actually worked is amazing. I mean German equipment gets a lot of stick for beeing to complicated, but this is very complicated and worked anyway :) Also very nice of them to start it and very charming accents all around.
Who would have thought 5 straight sixes would sound that awsome?
The cam sounds a lot more aggresive than i thought it would've been
I don't think it was aggressively cammed, I think it was simply cold. My old Trans Am sounded like a dragster when started cold.
@@JetsonRING I think it sounds that way because its a multi bank engine with separate ignition for each bank but a common central crank
@@UA-camforcedmetochangemyname When he started the engine, I too thought it sounded very aggressively cammed but it smoothed out as it warmed up.
It sounds aggressive as each engine operates individually, but each cylinder of a bank effectively fires 24 degrees before the same cylinder of the next bank does, through all 5 engine banks; all running identical, normal firing patterns, just multiplied in staggered Parallel, = 30 cylinders of 7.5:1 compressive fun !
AHH I love the smell of tank exhaust in the morning !!!
...just don't be using a camp shower...
Many/Most Fireflies have the right cannon. But the Firefly on itself is rare. They did have other engines too, like the Wright Radial and GMC TwinDiesel.
But the A57 multibank engine is very rare. Those where replaced mostly by radials when spare supply dried up.
So, the combination: Firefly, 17Pdr AND A57 MultiBank is SUPER RARE.
You can easily see if a Sherman was originaly build to have the A57 because the hull is longer (more space between the wheelstations). It is the Sherman M4A4 variant.
Always great to see rare surviving tank that can still operate.
Love the fact that this tank, from the 1940s, is still around and still working.
Most people are unaware that most tanks from the US had auto engines and transmissions in them -- which is why the Shermans with Ford V8s were preferred over other Allied tanks. Easy to use, easy to fix when they broke -- which means easier to get back into combat at the front.
Love me the sound of old engines firing up!
"tanks from the US had auto engines and transmissions in them..."
Hardly. The water cooled Ford GAA had an aluminum block, aluminum heads, and 4 valves per cylinder with tank usage output around 450 horsepower. It was originally Ford's ultramodern V-12 challenge to the Allison V-12 aircraft engine, but when the US government handed the aircraft engines contracts to Allison, Ford chopped off four cylinders and fielded the finest tank engine of WWII. Sherman tanks had either twin diesel engines stitched together by GM, the insane Chrysler A57 multibank with 30 cylinders, five distributors, and 30 sparkplugs, or a Curtiss-Wright radial aircraft engine, or the Ford GAA. Not one of them was a standard specification automotive engine of the time such as Ford's iron block, flathead V-8. Two of these Sherman tank powerplants were cobbled together auto engines and two were really aircraft engines. All were built to high standards using the American automotive industry's genius for mass production. The US Army went with the gasoline only Wright radial and Ford GAA's since they didn't want to deal with both diesel and gasoline in their supply system. The US Marines, British, and Soviets got the GM diesel Shermans since all three of those military supply chains handled lots of diesel fuel (many British tanks used diesel bus engine combinations, the Soviets preferred diesel engines, and the Navy used plenty of diesel on their vessels that didn't use steam power). The US Army had the luxury of avoiding the 30 cylinder craziness, so they were fobbed off on the British and Soviets. Think about it - the engine is misfiring - which of the 30 spark plugs do you pull first to see if it is fouled? Which of the 30 spark plug cables may have frayed? The Ford GAA was mostly aluminum while the Chrysler A57 was all cast iron. Which mechanics are volunteering to help pull out the old, heavy, bulky Chrysler engine and put in the new one? By the way, the boom on the recovery vehicle is leaking hydraulic fluid (again), so it won't be able to handle all the weight safely. Good luck with the A57 swap. Maybe they can figure out which of the 30 cylinders is not working properly back at the depot.
@@amerigo88 It’ll be right, still has another 29cylinders haha
Sherman driver I know hated working on them. Gotta be a genius to tune it he said.
sounds wonderful
Did the British paint part of the gun like that on their Fireflies? It would make sense, as it would make it harder to distinguish from a regular Sherman (thereby making it the first to be targeted).
And why was it called the "Firefly"? I didn't think they had those in the UK.
wasn't this engine a bunch of Chrysler 6 bangers stuck together? sounds good!
Yes, they all shared a common central casting as each of their own lower crankcase.
Funny how the variant with the most moving engine parts wound up becoming one of the most reliable. My fave will always be the Conti, but the Multibank is special and weird and has its own sort of magic. Love seeing them in action, and in the right tank no less!
As of. Now Jan 2020 there are still. Several Sherman’s in active service in Mexico as armored recovery vehicles and a few Central American countries .keep a variety of Sherman’s as infantry support. Tanks with I believe upgraded Diesel engines and 90mm. And or 105mm guns so a long service life
They did also use a radial air cooled aircraft engine also that would exceed 50 mph in the firefly. Crew said it was freezing from the airflow produced.
..because the air-cooled engined pre-Cold War tanks used the crew compartment as the dust filter & inlet/intake (to also act as a crew cooling system).. not from the tanks travel speed.
It is nice to see, the only working one from 2100 produced.
Thanks for sharing this unique piece Rita
And thank you for watching!
hi rita just seen this great vid you done fantastic and wow what a growl from the engine great work keep it up all the best maxgothic
If you look carefully you can see the hours of work that went into getting it running that smoothly. Very impressive on modern petrol.
Very cool. Thank you Rita!
Oh wow. Amazing. Headphones! Thanks Rita.
Thank you! 😍
THAT SOUNDS BLOODY MARVELLOUS better than the old Detroit motor.
That certainly stirs the blood.
'Shall we start this engine?'
''Yeah, yeah''
She might be a keeper ...
Wait, if I understood correctly he was saying that the Chrysler A57 W30 is quieter and smokes less than the Ford GAA V8? Wow, who would have ever guessed that an engine with 22 fewer cylinders would smoke more AND be louder lol. I do imagine the Ford GAA was more reliable though, yeah?
In some ways Ford would be simpler or easier to service, then again, ...Ford, does things its way. (Plus the joke of FORD being Forever Ordering Repair Deliveries)
Also using the Chrysler straight 6, 4 Litre, its engines and parts were used across America in many many roles, machineries, vehicles and industrial applications, and in other parts of the world too.
So while the A57 could be a heavy 2 half ton pain to lift out to work on, actual spares availability and cannibalisation for parts was easier than with other engines - which is why the British & Commonwealth/Empire forces loved it; a few damaged engines would provide plenty of spares for others, if that damaged unit couldn't be repaired itself, plus unlike the other engines, each engine bank was mostly its own individual that didn't need the others to run on it's own;
...only the radiator (in a later version there was a centralised shared water pump) and central main oil supply to each engine's own individual oiling system, all else being as if each engine was a totally separate unit.
I'm going to need a rag
So i have a question, if one part of the engine got shot out or malfunction'd in anyway, would it cause the other engines to cease operation as well or would the sherman's engine go into like a limp mode, where 4/5 or 3/5 engines would rotate or work, but at reduced performances?
I could see something like this multi-bank engine working out really well for the British just because if one engine went out, it could save the lives of the crew by allowing them to relocate a short distance away from the firefight, as to where standardized Sherman or tigers with only one in-line drive and engine would just be shot out?
I think this is the specific reason the brits liked it so much and the americans didnt. The US originally rejected it for carburator issues. The Brits on the other hand, praised it for its "refusal to die", wich sounds like what you describe. And it certainly wouldnt be mechanically impossible for the engine to work without one or two of the cylinder banks failing.
30 cylinders.....running like a dream....I can't even get my POS 4 banger running right at the moment.
To be fair, 5 of those cylinders could be dead and we wouldn't notice lol.
Hahahaha, I love how the the guy was like "oui oui, petit peu" (or however you spell it). I'm guessing the driver was like "wtf?" since it means "yeah yeah, just a little bit".
Then you see the older guy coming in on the right side of the frame at 4:06, probably coming to investigate, followed by the "Oh snap, busted!" act at 4:19 :D
That arm cross means "end" or "Stop", Mr William, which you can see on the previous video was asking me with the marshalling sign (same that you use to help moving or parking tanks) if I was satisfied with how long the engine run for us. :3
Rita Sobral aww. Here I was quietly giggling at the thought of him allowing the tank to run on a whim because of the rare occasion of meeting a fellow tank enthusiast :P.
Excellent video Rita :)
Thank you so much Scott! :D
That vehicle in that location kind of sends a shiver up the spine.
'Merica. "F" yea!
The aircraft engine he is talking about is the Wright R-975 Whirlwind and I could hardly blame tank owners for swapping out Multibank engines when they broke, the Wright not only were much more numerous, there was about 60,000 engines built, they were also a hell of a lot simpler to maintain, although you did have to remove the engine if the bottom plugs fouled, presumably they are cheaper to buy so for many it is a no brainer to put the old multibank on the shelf and run with the simple option.
The Wright is an air cooled engine so tolerances are wider and being a radial oil would collect in the bottom cylinders when not running hence why they smoked so bad on startup apart from that the logic for using an aircraft engine is that they are going to be the best power to weight ratio off the shelf.
can we appreciate how good a sherman looks with a 17pdr
The Belgian-(IIRC?)-resin model manufacturer known as RESICAST makes an AMAZING 1/35th scale reproduction of this multi-bank motor....
Oh Hell Yeah! That is Freaking Awesome!
Five forklift engines lots of torque and reliability and lasting. Slow revving real long stroke small bore side valve. My 38 Plymouth could take off in high gear if you slipped the clutch a bit. Perfect for a tractor or a tank. Just put enough together for the power you need.
imagine about to go to bed and you hear you grandpa scream “ *THEY ARE BACK!* “
So what's the 2 large towing eyes on the engine support frame for? Surely not for pulling it backwards... you wouldn't want to have to open the engine doors to tow it... or are these to help facilitate removing the engine?
The engine is basically on a "cradle" mounted to rails, it slides out the back (there's more to it, but that's the basic move).
@@mfree80286 slides out of the top, from above...
2:42 what does he say about the driver?
"i really like to drive her"???
or did he say... "ill alert the driver"???
(Very interesting) thank you Rita. Now this is history at its finest.
This was interteresting machine, good video!
Chrysler was hired to figure out how to manufacture tanks on assembly lines. They were using surplus R975's while Continental made more. Chrysler knew they couldn't produce enough to meet demand so designed the A57 so they could use their stock of assembled L6 engines and parts in their warehouses. The US Army wanted only Wright radial engines in their tanks to simplify training and repairs so the War Department tried to get the Soviets to use them. The Russians refused to so they got GMC Diesels while the British got stuck using the monster motor. Chrysler engineers work with British tank mechanics to make it as easy and fast as possible to remove then reset the A57 for servicing outside the engine compartment. Chrysler designed a lift ring that held the motor level while being disconnected then lifted to a certain height where the lift hook automatically slid forward so the back end tilted down so the front would clear the radiator when pulled out. The assembly was set on a frame for servicing which allowed the lifting ring to act the same when picked up by the truck crane. The R975 and Ford GAA were removed after 150 to 200 hours of run time for inspection and refurbishing. The A57 could run longer before that was needed to be done with many running for 1000 hours without having any problems.
It's not only a multibank engine, but a multi crankshaft engine,. It is 5 straight six flatheads joined in a circle and meshing with a central gear on a shaft that drives everything. Weird eh!
More a semi-flattened pentagon/pentangle doing 'the splits' than a circle, but each bank's firing pattern was circular being staggered apart from the next bank in sequence by 24.5 degrees - i.e: sequentially parallel firing order.
@@razor1uk610 Yes, we know it's not some sort of a radial engine and that the cylinder banks are all at different angles above the horizontal, but the cranks shafts have to be arranged in a circle otherwise they wouldn't mesh with the central sun gear, would they, dumbo.
Ooooh, is that a Scammel parked nearby? Please please, pretty please put out a video on it as well.
Hey if the community is interested in those I can post it as well! I am joining in another convoy this month and can record better video for you if its there!